Order What You Want, How You Want It

"Welcome to the Scarlet Crustacean! My name is Calvin, I'll be serving you this evening.  What brings you in tonight?"
"Cranberry juice."  The woman was engrossed.  She was about fifty three with white hair, and her eyes were intensely focused.  The menu absorbed all her attention; she clearly had no time for such trivial things as waiters and actual food. 
Her husband interrupted.  "What brings us in?  Well, it's a nice evening to go out to eat, and... there's some kind of holiday coming up, right?  Easter?"  He smiled.  I like this man already.
"Yes, which is why all the other guests dining tonight are in shades of red and pink and heart-shapes are everywhere.  It's going to be a strange Easter, too, considering it's on a Saturday this year."  I smiled back.  "What would you like to drink, sir?"
"I'd like a diet coke, please.  Honey, you want an appetizer?"  He raised his bushy, brown eyebrows above the menu and looked patiently at his wife. 
"Whatever you want."  They always say that, don't they, man?  His eyes totally agreed with me.
"All right," he said, "The calamari appetizer, Calvin.  Thanks."
"No problem, sir," I said, "I'll place your appetizer order and be right back with your drinks."

I set down some coasters and strode over to the galley to get the drinks. Another table had just ordered somewhere between four and a hundred bar drinks, so I picked those up from the bar while I was there.
"Hey, Cal!"  I looked up from the cranberry juice I was pouring to see Sonya the bartender's grinning face.
"Hiya," I responded, "busy at the bar, too, I see."
She cocked an eyebrow at me.  She didn't have to ask me if I was serious.  I was very obviously not; there were at least fifty people at the bar.  "So," she said while she made some frozen concoction, "I read some very interesting material yesterday."
"Really?"  I asked, knowing perfectly well where this was headed.  "Science fiction?"  I widened my eyes and directed my attention to a point a few feet behind her and to her left."
"Haha, no."  Sonya began passing over my drinks.  "A certain blog about a certain local restaurant."  Her subtlety doth amaze the subtlest of beings.  I had been trying to get her to realize that Stan, the manager, was standing right over her shoulder.  For reasons that really don't need to be published, I'd prefer that my managers weren't included in my esteemed audience (though they'd probably get a laugh or two out of this, too, now that I think about it). 
"Yeah, that guy who writes it is pretty funny," I agreed.  "I read some of it, too."  By now I had discerned that Stan wasn't even paying attention, so I stopped working at nonchalance.  I started traying up my drinks.
"Hey, do you think he'll put me in his blog?  What would my name be, because, obviously, he'd have to change it."
"You'll have to ask the author, Sonya."  I smirked at her and started walking back to my tables.  She rolled her eyes.
"Well, you can ask him for me!" she called after me.  "I know you know the guy."

Having dropped their drinks, I asked if the couple was ready to order their meal.
"Yes," the woman answered.  She picked up her glass and began eying it suspiciously.  "But I wanted apple juice."  I took a silent deep breath and looked at the husband.  Dude, please, said the thoughts I projected at him futilely, help me out here.  You know you heard her say she wanted cranberry, and I totally repeated it back to her.
"I thought you said you wanted cranberry, too, dear," he said.   
The man can read minds!  Or maybe I really am a psychic waiter. 
"Well, I want apple.  Bring me an apple juice, waiter."
"I'll get that for you in just a moment, ma'am.  Would you like to order your meal?"
"Yes, thank you, Calvin," the husband said before she could say anything else.  "May I have the steak and shrimp meal, please?  Medium well on the steak, sir, and the standard side is fine."

Dear Restaurant Gods and Food Service Angels: Can this man sit at all of my tables?  That would be awesome.  Thanks!  Love, Cal.

"And for the lovely lady?" I politely inquired.
"Give me the same."
I paused before jotting anything down, as is my habit whenever anyone says they want the same thing the previous person ordered.  "You want everything the same?"
"Yes."
"So, you'd like the steak and shrimp, with your steak medium well, and the standard side.  Correct?"
"Yes, give me the same thing."
"All right, ma'am, thank you very much.  I always ask just to be sure.  I'll have your order in and bring your salads out with some bread in just a few minutes."  I smiled and swept myself away.

A while later, I brought their food to them.
"What is this?" the woman asked as she cut into her steak.  "I wanted my steak medium well.  This is not done enough for me."
I apologized and promised to have the problem resolved shortly. Taking up the dish again, I carted it off to the kitchen.
"Hey, Wheeler.  I need this steak done a little more, please.  Sorry, dude.  Table fifty-eight."  I passed the steak over the counter to the grill man. 
"Yeah, Cal, sure thing.  Fifty-eight, you said?"  He started pulling up previous orders on his screen. 
"Yep."
"This was ordered medium well."
"Yep."
"The steak is medium well."
"Yep."  Gradually, my mental eye-roll had been infiltrating my vocal tone.
"So she ordered her steak medium well and said it wasn't done enough when it came out medium well."
"Yep."  This time, I actually rolled my eyes.  "You know how our guests are."
"Yeah," he said, his annoyance dulled by the simple fact that this was the billionth time this kind of thing has happened, "they order their food and don't say what they want.  They ask for medium well when they want it well done, they ask for it medium rare when they want it medium.  These people must live in tiny cages or something; they have no idea how food is prepared."
"Nah, I think they just like to add words to their preparation styles."  He laughed and nodded.
It's the only conclusion I can come to.  The more words in a preparation, the more exotic it must sound to them.  Medium well has four whole syllables - much more exotic than either 'medium' or 'well' alone.  It's why they ask for their salads with "ranch dressing, dressing on the side, extra onions, no tomatoes, and more croutons than usual."  They know they sound like a higher class of being that way.

I brought their steaks back out.  On my way I stopped at the bar to pick up another round of drinks for my table full of lushes.  
"So, Cal," Sonya said, passing my drinks over the bar.  "Your blogging friend needs more bar terms in his glossary."
My glossary, linked several times in this entry on restaurant-specific terms, is updated all the time to help you, the reader, follow along with all the silly seafood slang we sling at the Scarlet Crustacean.  I don't work at the bar, so naturally I don't have to worry about a lot of that terminology.  If I don't use it, you don't need it to read what I write, right?  However:
"He's open to suggestions.  If they seem apt enough, they'll make the cut.  Or if I have some weird bar experience, it may come up.  But feel free to comment."  That goes for all of you.  *shameless self-promotion*  Feel free to comment and pass this blog on to your friends.
But, Sonya, for you, I will note that this one specific drink I had to cart away on my already-full tray was one of the most gigantic piña coladas you've ever seen.  It's so big it comes with a sidecar, because we know if you order one of these drinks, you're looking to get buzzed.  My table was beyond buzzed, for the record - a situation that worked for me, because at least one of them was sober and driving and the others were all so carefree that I couldn't make them unhappy, even if I tried to be a bad waiter and told them what was really on my mind.

To make a short story even shorter, the steak was (of course) fine this time around - she got it the way she had wanted it, though she didn't order it the way she had wanted it.  Her husband continued to take my side until they finished the meal, and tipped me very well.  Part of me wonders if he generally tips well because he knows what he's subjecting servers to when he takes his wife out to eat.  In the long run, though, it doesn't matter.  Everyone went home happy.

See, dear readers?  Not every problem goes on forever at this place.  Sometimes these things do just end.