Listen Oswald, I'm Not The Same As you...

Forgive me Manuel for I have sinned...

You get to know your regular customers. I mean other than what they like to eat and where they like to sit and that they like their steak medium with just a little blood but not so much blood that it runs etc etc etc. After a while they volunteer all sorts of information, where they are going on holiday, who in the family just got pregnant/married/promoted, how drunk somebody got last Saturday night. And it's not just the good stuff either you get to see their scars from operations and have to act as referee during little fights. You get let in on private and intimate secrets such as the lady who told me about her miscarriage. Months later she told me the IVF treatment had been successful and she was pregnant again. It was sweet to hear the end of the story.

People tell me the strangest things. They seem to trust me. Maybe they wouldn't if they knew about Well Done Fillet! Hell maybe they wouldn't if they knew I was blabbing to the kitchen staff minutes after they told me some deep dark secret. Well not all secrets are shared.

Customers make the terrible assumption that I am the same as them, that I have the same problems as them. I've never owned a Mercedes C-Class so how the fuck would I know how difficult it is to get reasonable insurance for one?! As a waiter I don't have the disposable income for weekends in the South of France so I have no frame of reference when it comes to the problem of finding a good chalet with staff. I am the person that brings you extra napkins and pours your wine, not your bloody golf buddy. Jesus wept!

But all that is tolerable, bearable, even welcome, in comparison to one particular strain of conversation that has reared it's very ugly head over the last few months. Here's how tonight's version went...

"Good evening. I hope you're all well. Can I get you something to drink?" I enquire in my affable and polite way.

"Oh good your local!" Exclaims suburban Nazi lady "Tim, the waiter's local! What a relief. We've had such trouble lately with, well you know, these damn Polish types."

"Don't speak a word of the language you know. Bloody terrible trouble trying to get a Gin and Tonic the other night. Brought me bloody Bacardi! Terrible night." Adds suburban Nazi man.

I blank them. You wont drag me into your Monday night rascitfest.

"They are coming for your job your know." Warns suburban Nazi lady in her sternest Gin soaked voice. Suburban Nazi man nodded along as he scanned the wine list.

I had a quick look around me but couldn't see any Polish waiters hiding anywhere. Maybe they were under table 7 or they were discussing tactics in the toilets.

"Oh I'm so glad you speak English. I couldn't bear another night of repeating myself to the waiter over and over again" Suburban Nazi lady was getting more than a touch melodramatic. It as if she had just arrived into the last remaining restaurant in Belfast.

I couldn't resist following with "Pardon?"

And on it went. They made numerous references to how glad they were that I wasn't a "bloody Pole or one of them Romanian gypsies".

It was the casual manner of their racism that got to me. They spoke to me as if we were all in the same club, "Middle Classes For Forced Repatriation". And that fucking got to me. They got to me. But what really got to me was that I never said anything. I never pulled them up on it. I never said "Go fuck yourself you dirty WASP bastards." (Or even something less likely to get me fired) I never stood up for the Polish waiters and barmen that I know. That I like and work with. I just blanked them. Silence. I didn't nod along or agree with them but I didn't defend people I know. That's cowardice. And I'm angry with myself.

It's the third or fourth time that this has happened. But no more silence. I'll be putting the little Brown Shirts in their place. They will be told firmly that I ain't the same as them and to stick their opinions up the asses. Or words to that effect.

And another thing whilst we are at it, I'm on a roll here, people who have affairs are getting on my tits too. Are they just dumb as fuck or what is it? There is a regular customer who has been eating at the restaurant for as long as I have worked there who it turns out is having an affair. Now I don't care about that. I don't like it, but it's not my concern. The younger lady who he regularly dines with, kisses across the table, feels up when he thinks no one can see him isn't his wife. I now know this as he brought his wife and son to the restaurant on Sunday for lunch!

ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?

ARE YOU FOR REAL?

ARE YOU THAT FUCKING COCKY?

WAS THERE NO OTHER RESTAURANT YOU COULD HAVE GONE TO?

And to make it worse he pretended like he didn't know me. What a dick. God I hope he gets caught. That'll teach him to ignore me....

Now who else wants some? I'm in the mood for dropping soup on someone.

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