The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
For some reason, often when I am in a restaurant and reading a book, the waitstaff seem to enjoy asking me about the book. I’m not really sure why; they never really want to discuss it or anything, and at best it interrupts my eating process, but I guess… actually I have no idea why they do it. Anyways, this example, which I had yesterday at Denny’s, pretty much typifies this kind of exchange for me:
Denny’s: Hey, what book are you reading?
Me: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.
D: Who’s that?
M: He wrote The Remains of the Day.
D: What’s that?
M: They made a movie from it. Anthony Hopkins was in it.
D: Who?
Silence…
M: Can I have another diet coke, please?
Another recent fun one was when the waiter asked me what book I was reading because he had noticed that it had a map in the front, and he likes books with maps in the front. I actually gave him the title/author and he wrote it all down, so maybe he’ll actually go read it. Who knows. I’ve seen worse ways of deciding what to read.
I think they do it because they stupidly think that by making some kind of connection with you, it’ll make you leave them a bigger tip. They usually ask me where I’m from, so they can tell me they went to London once, so generally I tell them I’m from Boston which throws them a bit
shall we assume that the waitcreature in quesiton did not take the hint from the silence who hopkins is?
Ugh.