This isn't Burger King so you can't have it your way......

I popped out for a sandwich the other day to my favourite sandwich emporium.

"Oh Hi Manuel how are you?" asked the young lady behind the counter.

"I'm very well ta for asking. And you? You have a good weekend?" I replied in a jovial and friendly way. All this was delaying the sandwich getting and more importantly the sandwich eating. But one must make nice from time to time. I mean it would be a wretched world if we couldn't exchange pleasantries over a sandwich counter.

"Well I was at a funeral, so it wasn't so good." And with that her top lip began to quiver and her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh sorry to hear that. Eh.....yeah really sorry to hear that."

"Thanks, what can I get you?" she asked through misty eyes and with her voice breaking.

"Eh can I just get a coffee to go?" Well what else was I to do? I couldn't very well have her make me a sandwich in that state. Plus in that condition she would have made a right mess of it.

This is what happens when I go out for a simple sandwich - people cry.

I'm a simple chap with simple needs. And it would be both fair and accurate to say I like to keep my shit simple. I like to go to work, do some work (not a lot but some), and then come the fuck home again. This is the way I live, a credo if you will for my perfect work/life balance. I try to maintain this keep shit simple philosophy in my personal life too.

For example if I go out for something to eat I like to look at the menu, choose from the selection available and then inform the waiter of said choices. Keep shit simple. Oh how I wish the world at large could keep their shit simple too.

"Now sir are you ready to order?"

"Hmmmmmm not sure maybe ten fifteen more minutes?"

"Ten or fifteen more minutes?"

"Yes, I'm just not sure. That okay?"

I meandered back behind the bar which gave me a great vantage point from which to view this oddity. If he took the full further fifteen minutes to choose what he wanted that would mean he had spent half an hour to select his dinner. Half an hour? Are you kidding me? Wars have been won and lost in less time. In half an hour I can eat dinner get hungry and eat all over again.

But I'm a waiter, so I waited. And muttered. I am also a mutterer.

Eventually he closed his menu and I was on him quicker than it takes your average bank to go bust.

"So sir what can I get you this evening?" Not that it was going to be evening for much longer at this rate of going.

"I want a steak, the sirloin....." Half a fucking hour to choose a steak, sweet mother of Gordon Ramsay! "....I want, are you writing this down?"

"Yes sir I am writing this down." The stabbing fork was looking good for some action.

"I want half of it cooked rare and the other half cooked medium. I want the sauce from the pheasant served with it and the potatoes from the chicken. Have you got that?"

"Yeah...eh....let me get this straight. You want the steak cooked both rare and medium?"

"Yes, you'll need to cut it in half."

"Obviously sir. And would you like it cut length ways or width ways?" I asked in the most sardonic tone I could muster.

He tutted as if I was the mental one, "Width ways of course." I swear if he had rolled his eyes I would have stabbed him with my pencil. And followed up with the fork.

"And would sir be ordering some wine this evening?" I was thinking maybe a half bottle of the shiraz mixed with a half pint of Guinness.

"Yes, Cabernet, a bottle."

"Very good."

And off I popped. I gathered my waiter chums around me as I entered the order in to the register. They all shook their heads. They all stared at yer man. We all waited for a reaction from the kitchen.

"Yeah, they aren't gonna do that. Not. A. Chance." Said waiter chum number 1.

"I know but they deserve a laugh."

I answered the phone. I listened. I hung it up. And then I went and told chummy that the kitchen wouldn't be fulfilling such a ludicrous order. But not in those words.

"I'll have a steak then, medium rare with chips and pepper sauce." He said this with no hint of surprise or anger. A very odd chap indeed.

"Good choice sir, good choice."

He had wasted a half hour of his life. He hadn't wasted my time as I got a giggle out of it.

Arsehole, should have kept his shit simple.