Unbeknownst to Anya and I, last night was the Bi-Centenial Bad Customer Service Night. What should have been a thirty minute excursion into 'On the Border' turned into an hour and a half, finger tapping the table wait-a-thon. It's not that I didn't have my water filled that bugged me so much (although that was bad), but was more frustrated that I KNEW that I was getting bad service. Knowing that our waiter was a total cheese, I opted out of getting my all-time favorite appetizer called "Guacamole Live." Not only is "Guacamole Live" the tastiest restaurant Guacamole ever, it is my lifeblood. It gives me reason a reason to fight and make the world a better place for my fellow man. If tasting Guacamole this good is wrong, I don't want to be right. So to willingly give up my sole reason for coming to 'On the Border' put me in a sour mood to start off with.

Bad service may be one of my biggest pet peeves. I usually don't blame the waiter. I know that waiting on people is a stressful job worthy of 'Occupational Hazard' status. Any job that tense, that busy, and that demanding of your tray balancing skills is worthy to be recognized by the Congress of these United States as the hardest job in America. And usually, the waiters and waitresses of the world do an outstanding job. But what really makes me mad is that these hard working college kids usually have no wait support from their managers or their fellow wait staff. I put most of the blame on the managers. It's a balancing act to either have too many people working on a Monday night or too few. But if a manager makes the decision to not have a full wait staff on a Monday night, if it does get busy, they should be the first ones to lend a hand to their staff. That's just my opinion though. I know it's not worth much being a paid customer and all.

"National Bad Service Day" was also manifested at the movie theater. What we thought was going to be a long wait time between dinner and the movie turned into a rushed drive to the theater, eyes watching the minutes progress the whole way. We got to the theater a good five minutes before the movie was set to start. Perfect timing if you ask me. In some ways getting bad service was a blessing in disguise. With 'Lord of the Rings' opening this week, I realize that I'm going to be doing more than my fair share of waiting in line for a movie. Even if I don't see the movie tonight at it's opening, I'm still hip to the fact that at if I want a good seat in the theater, I'm going to have to be in line at least an hour early. Maybe even more. I don't like waiting in the theater for a movie to start. You'll never see me more antsy than when I'm waiting for a movie to start 'in utero.' I'll probably check my watch more times waiting for a movie to start then I will while I'm waiting for my kids to be born.

I digress...

The line to get into the movie was achingly slow. The managers at this particular theater must have been walking that tight-rope of having too many Monday night employees, or too few. What really surprised me was to see a manager come and speak to the sole cashier, notice the long line stretching down the sidewalk, and then go back into the lobby. Maybe the ticket window blocking the cashier from the elements isn't a window at all. Maybe it's a one way mirror. Maybe we can see in, but they can't see out. It's easier on a minimum wage movie theater employee to not see just how long the line trully is.

After finally getting our tickets, we rush into the lobby. The ticket tearer tore our tickets and handed them back to us. "Theater number 6," he said. Movie theater managers have to realize that at least one employee of theirs will show up to work drunk and/or stone. Those employees who show up as such, they end up being the ticket tearers. It requires little to no effort or mental thinking. All that job asks of you is that you tear a ticket, read the theater number back to the movie goer, and if they're feeling like going above and beyond, telling them where the theater is. Our ticket tearer left off this last part, so Anya and I made like Lewis and Clark with our ticket stub in hand. "Number six? Number six, number six." We'd reference our ticket stub every theater we'd come to. Look down, look up.

Pet peeve number 235 was avoided. I hate walking into a movie and missing the previews. Even though I hate them, I hate missing the commercials as well. I like to be in my seat when the lights go down in tinseltown. Lights were still up.