CHALK ONE UP FOR OUR SIDE

Sunday Brunch, and I'm running around like a crazy person. Ever since our publicity in NY magazine for having the best brunch, business has been booming. The usual clientele is scores of twenty- somethings hung-over from a night out after a long week of office work. Bloody Mary's and Mimosa adorn each table and water is being chugged faster then the shots went down the night before. (and came back up for that matter). After all the one night stands and close encounters with the porcelain god, they come in and feast before spending the remainder of the day on the couch watching the DVD collection of Dave Chappell or Sex and the City.

Besides this crowd, there's the tourists. One table in particular is just screaming dysfunctional family. The son is around 18-19 and sitting on one side of the table, his parents on the other. No words are exchanged except what they would like to order, and the cracked out looking mother complains about her iced tea.
"It tastes stale."
"It was made this morning. We have hot tea if you'd like something fresher."
"No, water is fine." (of course) The son looks like he wants to kill her. She looks like this is a last ditch effort to try and spend some quality time with her family before he goes back to college. The father stopped caring a long time ago and just wants some French toast. Now.

Fourteen awkward minutes later the mother who had been trying to have a meaningless conversation with her son, was running out of things to talk about. Now, it's become my fault.
"Excuse me, will it be much longer? Can you find out if it's almost done?" she asked.

Right lady, let me hop on the phone and ask the kitchen to cook your med-well burger a little faster. They love that. I didn't even have to come up with some bullshit "yes let me go check for you". The son, silent until now, couldn't stand it. He was totally on my side.

"Mom! Calm the fuck down! Look around, do you see how busy they are?"

AWESOME.
Their food arrived one minute later.