Pretentious

The leather-bound menu card was starting to show signs of my sweaty fingerprints. My knuckles were slowly going white from the exertion of trying to sit still and not run around crying, 'FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.' My friend watched me anxiously. I did not want to let her down as I had so many times before, embarrassing her in public with my actions or words. I felt beads of sweat pouring down my face like I was standing in a lukewarm tepid shower and knew that it was any second before my make-up was going to mingle with that perspiration. I needed to calm down before I started to look like a distressed clown.

There is one thing I hate most in this world: pretentious restaurants. You know the ones where the entrance reminds you of a five-star hotel with gold gilded walls and black marble exteriors. From the outside, you can see the chandelier that sparkles with a flat lustre and should really be on top of an extravagant wedding cake. Then some waiter drones at you from the beginning taking your hat and coat so quickly from you that you don’t even have time to respond to his questions. Finally, they pull out your chair so far from the table that you do not know where to stand, you get swooped into the table as they tuck the chair under you but now it is so close to the table that you are left unable to breathe. Then comes the dreaded moment. The moment that you wish a hole in the ground would swallow you up momentarily and then spit you out just in time for your dinner to arrive. The moment the menu arrives.

Two things could then happen. Either the font used on the menu is so over the top that you cannot read the words or the font is clear and the restaurant decided to use the fanciest words ever so that you do not understand what they offer. You feel too embarrassed to ask what the dishes are in English when the waiter comes back to take your order so you point to some random word hoping that it will turn out alright. In my experience, by some twist of fate, I have always managed to order a mushroom dish and I hate mushrooms more than I hate pretentious restaurants. The only good thing about these snobbish restaurants is the fact that they have amazing bread and olives so I tend to fill up on those and then take a couple mouthfuls of the mushroom-infested plate. To make the whole evening perfect, you have to pass a pianist who looks like he died internally and pretend he is playing the most beautiful pieces when it is plain to all and sundry that the piano he is playing on has not been tuned in a decade.

Those restaurants are the worst places to go on a date as you can never have a proper conversation as the tables are so close together that you are never quite sure who is talking to who. I remember I went on a date with this man who was not half bad-looking, could have had a stronger jawline and a better dress sense. Easy for me to say now in hindsight. I thought he was handsome at the time, but that is beside the point. In a bid to impress me, he took me to this dimly lit subterranean restaurant where the staff wore cravats and pocket watches. Needless, to say that a sense of foreboding was hanging over the air just as the smell of cigar choking fumes was. I am a clumsy person anyway but I was trying so carefully not to mess up, but of course, I did so anyway. I went to the restroom to spit out the mouthful of ‘mushrooms drowned in an oak-scented cheese sauce’ I was forced to endure and when I re-emerged I realised I had no clue where my table was. As the place was dimly lit I could not spot my unfortunate date anywhere and so I clumsily waddled into people, tables, animals, and a lamp post which I profusely apologised to until I finally sat down.

Now, if a random person sat down in front of you in a restaurant, you would probably say something to them as you would be confused as to what they were doing there. Well, apparently not this gentleman. I sat in front of this random dude attacking his chicken as if he had not eaten in a week. Long story short, I had a very interesting conversation with him about his sense of politics. So imagine my surprise when my date walked over, flung the bill in my face and stormed off, flapping his arms as if he were trying to fly.

Anyway, none of that could happen tonight. It was already going a bit topsy-turvy. The menu was stupidly written in calligraphy but the ink had gone for a jog around the page so I could neither make heads nor tails of it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the waiter making his dreaded way towards us, the pad out ready to write down my last meal. I blinked and he teleported to right by our table. I watched myself point to the third dish on the menu and watched his lips form the word mushroom. I stood up before I knew what I was doing and exploded. ‘For the love of God, is it that difficult to write a menu in English in a way that can be understood without any of this flouncy font that just makes us all look stupid.’ I tried to regain my dignity, what was left, and sweep out unhindered but what did I do?

Walk right into a silly chair, knock into a waiter, who was balancing four plates of cold soup and a week later still manage to find edamame beans in my hair.