Tonight We Paid to Have Someone Spill Beer on Our Daughter

Tonight Jason, Jillian and I had dinner at the Olive Garden. We had received gift cards over a year ago and had never gotten around to going. I have never really been a fan but hadn't been in years and thought it would be fun to try out again. I would like to say it was lovely (like Will Ferrell did in Old School) but it was not.

We were seated and helped by someone who promptly announced she was not our server. We hadn't had a chance to look at any menus so no, we didn't yet know what drinks or appetizers we wanted. Just water to start. She brought that and the fun began.

Our "real" server came, we put in our drink order, told our waiter no, we still don't know what we want to eat and tried to entertain our antsy daughter. He brought over our beers (Killian's Irish Red for me in honor of St. Patty's) and promptly spilled Jason's beer all over the table and Jillian.

What would you do if you spilled a beer on a baby? Run and get a towel? Apologize?

Ummm, not quite. There was beer. On our baby. And he just stood there. Finally as we knocked aside our chairs to get up and rescue our daughter as she burst into tears, there was some mumbling about making sure she was okay.

Jason and I tend to be really patient with service industry folks. We don't get too riled but it was pretty ridiculous to have almost zero reaction. Other waitstaff came over to mop up and then everyone left us to put back together our table. Alone.

A few minutes later Jason's replacement beer came. Were we ready to order food? Ummm, still no. We were cleaning a highchair, calming a crying child and trying to figure out what the heck happened. Give us another minute. Our waiter told us the manager would be coming over.

The manager. Wow. I thought you became a restaurant manager if you were really good with the customers. Not so much, I guess. He walks up to us and says, "Did you guys need help finding something on the menu?" Huh?! That's a weird way to open an apology for one of your waiters spilling beer on a small child.

We stammered that no, we were fine, just that there was a lot to look at. He then went on to pointedly ask if I needed help finding anything (was this code for something???) and recommended the short ribs to Jason, saying, "Put down your fork. Put down your knife. Use your spoon. That's how tender they are." And then he left. WTF! No apology. No attempt to recognize.... anything. Jason and I were so taken aback by how weird he was we didn't know how to react.

We look at the menu for the first real time tonight. Ok, now we're ready to order. Would we like some breadsticks? Sure. Some dipping sauce with the breadsticks? Ok sure. Jillian starts to fidget and whine. We debate getting this to go as we have already had a winner of an evening. Just then the breadsticks come. Awesome, that was fast. Our waiter explains that the marinara dipping sauce is very hot and the baby shouldn't touch it. Then he puts it down right in front of the baby.

We get our main dishes (we split appetizers - pretty yummy actually) and try to keep Jillian fed and entertained. She is eager to get out of the highchair but we get her to last long enough for us to eat. During this time our waiter keeps his distance. He stops by once to ask how everything tastes and see if we need our waters refilled (they're full, but thanks. We're too busy trying to drink this beer before you spill it on our kid again. Ok that's mean and I didn't say that.) Jason asks for the check.

The moment of truth. In my mind, if some egregious mistake happens in a restaurant there are generally two ways to fix it: an apology and some sort of discount. We didn't really get the apology (maybe we would have if we had ordered the ribs the manager suggested) and so I was assuming Jason's beer or something would be on the house.

I scanned the receipt. Awesome! They removed the charge for Jason's beer. Wait - then they added it right back on. That's right the receipt looked something like this:

Jason's Beer $6.00

Jason's Beer -$6.00

Jason's Beer $6.00

Are you kidding me? Ok, this was free money (gift cards). I'll suck it up. But then I saw what really ticked me off. They charged us almost $4 for that freaking breadstick dipping sauce. A small cup of marinara for $3 and change. So no apology. No discounts. And almost $4 for mashed up tomatoes that I thought came free with the breadsticks.

Ugh. Never again. Sorry for any of you folks that want to meet for dinner at the Olive Garden of Evil. We already have other plans that day.