Why are old people so complicated?

There is nothing more fantastic than waiting on old people. They are the #1 distributers of the "oral tip," ala telling you how wonderful you are and then leaving you a low tip as a bonus to their kind words. Every single table of old people that I get seems to follow the same routine. Anyhow, here are some of the really annoying and repetitive things to expect when serving shrivs.

Discounts/Coupons - Mondays are our restaurant's old people friendly day. Unlike the normal grimey waste of life people that use comps and voids to their advantage, shrivs get a nice 10% off discount if they show us a card indicating that they are ready to die soon. We then have to hound down a manager and actually pretend we care that they are old and that they are going to cut our tip down by 10%.

Hot tea/coffee, soups - Old people hate cold beverages because they are rotting away and might freeze to death, so they need everything very warm. They seem to have lost the feeling in their mouths, so the hot beverages stimulate their taste buds so they can once again eat food. Often, you will serve them hot tea with regular milk instead of creamers. Regular milk actually requires effort, being that it has to be poured. In some restaurants, you have to ask the bartender for milk. What a waste of time for a low tip. To top that off, shrivs often order soup and then have the nerve to complain about the the soups being cold. One time I took the thermometer out to the table and took the soup's temperature at a whopping 183 degrees! My guess is that this shriv was too caught up on their hot tea to realize that the soup was also very hot, but seemed only warm because of the temperature of their hot beverage.

Water with everything - Any shriv that orders a soda, a cocktail, even a hot beverage has a 95% chance of ordering a water to go along with their drink. The other 5% order a water with a lemon.

Special modifications - Old people hate spices! They hate anything that will rupture their little tummy in any way so they stick to the classics. They even find ways to modify a house salad! I have this one old couple come in every week (usually Tuesday lunch) and order a salad with just lettuce and oil and vinegar. Wow, that's a great salad! Tonight I witnessed a server entering about 10-15 lines of special modifications to a shrimp salad that already has nothing in it. The old bag then called our kitchen manager out to talk to him about the dressing, and how she had the same salad last night, the same way and got this mysterious dressing that we never had in stock. She then proceeded to fall asleep at the table for about an hour...What a camper!

Nasty faces - Shrivs make nasty faces whenever something isn't to their liking. It's not our fault that the guys in the kitchen didn't cook the blood out of the steak. No problem though, we'll fix it! "No, I'll eat it the way it is." Old people would rather complain about every bite than let you fix a kitchen error.

Bathrooms - Shrivs hate dirty bathrooms. Even if there is one piece of paper hanging out of the trash can, they will complain that the bathroom is dirty. I still have never seen an old person use soap in our bathroom, but you know damn well they are watching us to make sure we wash our hands.

Sweet N Lows/Equals - For a while in our restaurant we only stocked sweet n low, but now we stock equal after two years of asking for it. Now, people want splendas. Miraculously, nobody in their right mind uses this nasty stuff other than fat women on diets or old people. I just love it when at the end of the night I have to fill up a sugar caddy that I know was hijacked by some old person who couldn't afford to buy a box of equal for their coffee at home.

Grandkids - It's always a grandkids birthday when grandma and grandpa bring the kiddies out to eat! Be prepared for balloons and birthday songs!

Don't forget the coffee refills. Old people love the endless cup of coffee. Make sure it's fresh too because they will ask you to throw on a new pot of decaf.