Garçon

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In the quaint and cozy city of Lille in northern France, there is a small square with a restaurant. This particular day it’s warm and sunny, there is lots of people on the streets, so we’re happy to get a table in what seems to be a central location. Maybe we should have gotten the hint from the table next to us. A poor English fellow and the woman he’s trying to impress are ready to leave, but have been charged €2 too much. When the Garçon - the waiter - is made aware of this in a brave attempt from the Englishman to try his French, Garçon will hear nothing of it. How dare they come in to his establishment and insinuate that anyone in his restaurant has made a mistake? Naturally the customers have mis-ordered, mis-read, mis-understood, or mistakenly altered the bill themselves. The manager is called in. Garçon walks away with a frown and a curse word or two.

He walks straight to our table. Having witnessed the scene at the other table, we are overly polite when asking for menus in English. He seems to understand. A number of minutes later he comes back with menus - in French. Before even handing them to us, he mumbles something, retracts the menus, and immediately finds the other tables under his command more interesting to attend to. Ten minutes later we are still without menus, drinks, utensils, and seemingly a light year away from food. Just when we are ready to leave, he brings us the same menus in French he was holding before. Doesn’t matter. Anything with text on it and that can be ordered here is fine. Don’t want to mess with the Garçon. Don’t want him to serve us sneezers. With a very low key and polite attitude (avoid eye contact!), the rest of the dinner goes well. Food is good, bill is correct, service is adequate. Maybe Garçon calmed down. Maybe Garçon sobered up. Maybe Garçon just didn’t like the English. Or maybe we learned the secret language of the Garçon!

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