Attitude doesn't help columnist

I really should have known better. I took my mother out to lunch last week. When the waiter asked what I wanted to drink I asked for either Mello Yello or Mountain Dew. The waiter told me that they only carried Coke products. I replied that Mello Yello was a Coke product. That was my mistake. I should have kept quiet because karma immediately plotted revenge.
Why on earth do waiters and waitresses insist on informing me that they only carry a certain brand in a huffy tone of voice that implies that the other brand is beneath them? Why can’t they simply say that they didn’t carry either of the products and ask if I would like something else? It honestly doesn’t matter that much what I get to drink but that tone of voice sets my teeth on edge.
I usually bite my tongue or mutter under my breath but this time something compelled me to tell the guy that what I had asked for was indeed made by the brand that restaurant carried. Karma kicked in when I asked for lemonade instead.
I took one sip and realized that what was in my glass was water with only a faint a hint of lemon. They were out of lemonade. It was subsequently replaced by root beer that actually tasted like root beer but karma wasn’t done with me yet. I had ordered a sandwich on a rye bun. The waiter came out of the kitchen and said they were out of rye buns would I like rye toast instead? I ordered something else. This time they had what I asked for.
If I had kept quiet there is no doubt in my mind that the lemonade would have tasted like lemons and that the kitchen would have had dozens of rye buns. But, no, I had to correct the waiter.
It was the tone of voice that had gotten on my nerves and the misinformation only compounded the problem. I know that the staff has no control over what the restaurant serves. I know that these people are simply trying to make a living. I know that they deal with cranky people all day and I had just become one of the cranky ones. Yet I could not stop myself from responding to that tone of voice.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. If store or restaurant personnel are short with me I tell myself that they are having a bad day and it has nothing to do with me. If they are less than cheerful or even downright nasty I try not to take it personally. I try not to compound their problems. After all, none of us knows what the other person is dealing with in their private lives. I do as I am told and get out of the way.
But that holier-than-thou tone of voice that is used when somebody says that “we” don’t carry a certain product makes that all but impossible. My reaction to a tone of voice has gotten me in trouble more than once. This time the cosmos decided to teach me not to overreact by messing up my order.
If I could learn to prefer colas instead of lemon-lime drinks dining out would be so much easier. As I have never done anything the easy way, I will have to learn to not correct people when they inform me that they don’t carry the requested flavor. Karma might do more than mess up my order the next time. Next time I might almost get run over coming out of the restaurant. Oh, wait. I did almost get run over by a lady talking on her cell phone but that wasn’t until several days later. I guess karma wasn’t done teaching me a lesson yet.[[In-content Ad]]