The Frazzled Waiter

Forceful gales of wind blew dust that scratched our exposed legs as we walked along the coastline.  An open-air tent toppled over on the beach and rolled away until a trio of sunbathers rescued the shelter.  The sea was a royal blue speckled with glittering crystals of sunlight.  As the thunderous waves crashed upon the pebble shore, the water turned translucent and, once settled, blue again.  This is the Cote d’Azur——the Blue Coast.  The name is not the most creative, but the label is appropriate.

My small group escaped the powerful gusts by heading into the Old Town of Nice, France.  In the central vein, shopkeepers sold expensive local produce while amateur artists hawked their water colors.  All the cafés offered over-priced dishes that forced us to find sustenance in the backstreets.  After turning down a few spots, we came across a cheap selection of salads and sandwiches. 

A casually-dressed waiter addressed me in rapid French of which I understood very little. 

Je regarde le menu, I said, “I’m looking at the menu.” 

The waiter’s hair was thinning even though he looked quite young.  He cleared the table with one hand and wiped the surface with a paper towel in the other hand.  While cleaning, he spoke too quickly again, so I asked if he could speak more slowly.  He didn’t appear to do much slowly, which explains his thinning hair.

He switched to a form of rushed, broken English and arranged the tables inside the cramped café to accommodate the whole group.  I ordered a four cheese panini because it was the Frenchiest dish I could find other than a salad nicoise, but I doubted a salad would fill me up. 

Bridget ordered a large salad, and I discovered it may have done the job due to its enormity.  There were heaps of thinly-sliced ham stacked onto a bushel of lettuce and a few kilos of tomatoes. 

I couldn’t identify the individual cheeses on my sandwich, but they were all lined up in a particular order, which was repeated on each half of the panini.  If the cheeses were a poem, their rhyme scheme would be:  A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D.  I first bit into this greenish bleu cheese and was slightly revolted when I realized I would encounter this cheese once more after I consumed its neighbors. 

The waiter zoomed around the café with efficient movements.  From where I sat at the bar, I could see the small galley kitchen in front of me.  A young French girl hand-washed dishes in a small sink and distributed menus to newcomers.  A woman handled take-out orders from customers standing on the sidewalk behind a glass case of samples.  She also manned both the cash register and the panini grill. 

My seven friends and I sat inside at the bar and at high-tables near the wall.  There were more tables and chairs on the outside patio, and customers were piling in during the lunch rush.  Having worked in the restaurant industry, I could recognize talent when a man or woman was overwhelmed with tasks.  These people were in the weeds, but they handled the onslaught with synchronized teamwork that was beautiful to watch. 

The waiter poured crepe mixture onto a hot griddle and flattened the batter with a thin wooden mallet.  He scraped the bottom upward with a spatula and flipped the crepe.  As he waited for it to cook, he delivered two dishes and two glasses of wine to a couple sitting on the patio.  He quickly returned to the kitchen to add dollops of Nutella to the crepe.  He folded it, plated it, delivered it, and retrieved dirty dishes. 

His pace was so frantic that he banged his leg off a table and limped off the pain outside the restaurant.  After recovering, he weaved his way through menu-browsers while yelling, Attention! Attention! Excusez! Excusez!  His demeanor was quite blunt, which differed vastly from the deferential and subservient display of American waiters.

When the waiter announced my friends’ meals in the French names they did not recognize, they did not respond, so he yelled the names in English.  “Wake up!” he said as he spread butter onto a sugary crepe.  Many diners would consider this outburst to be rude, but I appreciated his honesty and his curtness.  I know what it’s like to deal with the ignorant public when you’ve got a million things to do.  He merely said what was on his mind, and I respect him for that.  However, the language barrier helped to lessen the tension in his words.    

Back home in the States, I could lose my job if I talked to a customer like that, and I’m never treated this way at restaurants where I’m often pampered with inauthentic, corporate-created dialogue.  This brush with the hectic, impolite French waiter was a refreshing spectacle.  Being properly scoffed at by locals is a crucial component of being cast astray in foreign territory. 

After sluggishly chewing through each stripe of cheese, I paid the bill and conversed with the cashier in French.  I apologized for eating so slowly, but she waved this off and told me I should take as much time as I would like.  I explained to her that I worked at a restaurant back home.    

“You all work so fast,” I said.  “It’s incredible.”

She thanked me and handed me the change, and I made no attempt to grab the money and delivered this awkward phrase, “I have no need.”  I didn’t know how to say Keep the change.  For less than ten euros, I got a sandwich that was 75% delicious, and a performance to rival the cabaret.