They are also very important. Words help you say what you mean and if you don't say what you mean, you will never mean what you say. I like words. I like all kinds of words, especially palindromes. A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same in both directions. Eye. Bob. Racecar. Let's try something harder: Do geese see God? How about: Rise to vote, sir. Yes, palindromes are fun. You know what else is fun? An oxymoron. An oxymoron a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in "cruel kindness" or "to make haste slowly." You might want to say you like oxymorons too, but the plural of oxymoron is oxymora. Like I said, I like words. Some great examples of an oxymoron: jumbo shrimp, new and improved, clearly misunderstood. But I would like to relate my most favorite oxymoron of all. It is an adverb for a chain of restaurants that does not live up to it's name:
Friendly's Restaurant
Originally hailing from Springfield, Massachusetts in 1935, Friendly's was a good, family restaurant that served great ice cream. The following is taken from their website:
LIARS! Now, I can't account for every Friendly's out there, that would just be presumptuous. But what I can tell you is that I have had some terrible experiences in a Friendly's. Sure, they have good ice cream, but I could run down to my local supermarket (as long as a certain cashier isn't having a bad day)and pick up a gallon of ice cream and eat it on the couch. You go to a restaurant so that you don't have to cook, or scoop your own ice cream, or clean up after yourself. However, when you go to a Friendly's you can't always count on having that experience. The last Friendly's I was a sorry patron in greeted me with a ten minute wait to be seated, even though there were eight empty booths. Several members of the waitstaff are talking in low voices trying to decide who will seat us. Seriously, four of them standing there doing nothing. Finally we sit down. The table is sticky. Guess none out of the four could have wiped down the table. The waitress made it over to us and took our drink order. That took a while, but hey, maybe it's busy tonight, who am I to judge. We ordered our food and waited. And waited. And waited. Now, they have this thing called, "build your own burger." As a fat guy, I can't resist. So I ordered the burger with blue cheese, bacon and buffalo sauce on top. Most burger fans can tell you that if you order a sauce for a burger it should go on top of the burger so that it can slowly ooze down over the creation and allow the meat to soak up it's buffalo goodness. Mmmmmmm...buffalo sauce. Sorry about that, just had a fat guy cut away moment. Back to friendly's. Oh yeah, the food comes to the table. On my burger: bacon, no blue cheese and buffalo sauce on the side. The only thing missing was a comment of:
"Here's your burger. Some assembly required."
So let's sum up so far. Twenty minutes to get drinks. Another twenty-five for the food. Meanwhile little Johnny sonofabitch is screaming at the top of his lungs while his parents ignore him. Another kid will not stop kicking my booth. And the waitress across from us is more interested in showing off her ass than taking orders. My waitress had two speeds slow and stop and she got stuck in stop. Other than that my food order was wrong. How do you forget the toppings when I only asked for three? I know there's really nothing they can do about the patronage. But they can live up to the expectation of good service and food that makes you smile. If I wanted to put it all together myself I would've stayed home. But, for Christsake, get it to me reasonably quickly.
Onto the ice cream part of the meal. Where ice cream makes the meal. That's the slogan. Okay, lets get a three topping sundae, chocolate ice cream, with peanut butter sauce, oreos and butterfingers. I know what you're thinking, but, no, it didn't come out wrong. It did, however, take a good fifteen minutes to get to my table. Not once did I get an apology or even an explanation for the wait time. Please don't keep me waiting, I don't like it, especially when I am paying you.
"Is there anything else I can get you?"
Yeah, how about the last hour of my life back. Oh, or was that your cue for me to leave you a tip. Here's a tip: DO A BETTER JOB! I understand that being a waitress is a tough job, but there are lots of tough jobs out there. I looked down at my bill. The bottom of my check says: "We want to hear from you." I don't think they want to hear from me. You know what they don't listen to...the ineffective management and sub-par waitstaff in all of their locations. "Where ice cream makes the meal" Well it better, because it sure ain't the fucking service. If you're going to have a slogan, please make it mean something. Every time I go to Friendly's the level of service is equal a slogan of: "Here's you ice cream...eat it and get out!" I think I have their next slogan:
"Welcome to Friendly's. Please enjoy the mediocrity."
Ok, the Jubilee roll is pretty bangin'
No comments:
Post a Comment