The waitress was in such a huff we were reluctant to ask if it was red or green curry.
The waitress was in such a huff we were reluctant to ask if it was red or green curry.
Is the text on menus getting smaller, ponders Jodi Byrant.
I saw a meme on social media the other day which read: ''The adult version of head, shoulders, knees and toes is wallet, glasses, keys and phone.''
This led to all kinds of comments being posted, such as "Tie andfly" and "I remember when a friend of mine would make the sign of the cross to check spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch''.
Someone commented they cannot even locate those items when they have them on them and another reckoned kids should be added in there. I can't say I've ever forgotten the kids – they're loud; the phone, yep plenty of times, although purposefully. Keys you wouldn't get far without, as with the wallet, but glasses … now that's another story.
I should really wear my glasses all the time. I'm naughty, and, since hitting a certain age, I definitely can't read without them.
I've always been able to get away with squinting at the text up close but, nup, not any more! Which is why I need to remember this little rhyme above before I leave the house because, for example, unless I know the menu well, it makes dining out in a restaurant problematic.
Is it just me or is the text getting smaller on menus? Okay, thought so. The lighting doesn't help either.
So, by the time I've had a good squint, holding the menu at various distances before surrendering it to someone to read out to me, my head is pounding.
Leaving the reading glasses at home just magnified the problem.
Which leads me to my invention: Why don't restaurants have little plastic magnifying glasses at their tables? They could attach them to the end of a chain like banks do their pens. It's not rocket science so surely this has been thought of before. If not, well, I'll patent it.
Admittedly, sometimes I don't even forget my glasses. I'm partly still in denial about having them but also, they're just so thick that the case they travel in is of mammoth proportions and barely fits in an evening bag.
This was the situation recently. I may or may not have forgotten my glasses and, with pounding head, ordered a drink, thinking it might alleviate the pain. It didn't because it turns out the waitress gave me straight Coke Zero and when questioned was adamant this was what I had asked for. It wasn't, and doesn't she know the customer is always right (even if they're not)?
This gave her a bad attitude toward us for the rest of the evening and my coconut rice was just like my dining partner's plain rice, and our Thai green curry was more like Thai red curry but the waitress was already in a huff so we kept quiet.
Right at the end, she perked up and was very pleasant – most likely because we were leaving — and I'm still unsure if she was just having a bad night or if I had started off right by bringing my glasses, the night would have gone more smoothly.
Either way, I'll be fitting some painkillers into my evening bag from now on and, remember, if magnifying glasses start appearing at restaurants, you heard it here first.
