Another Kid Gets Drunk at a Restaurant

I always considered my childhood a good one. I had two loving parents and two younger brothers and I remember being a happy child. It turns out my youth was not as idyllic as I thought, because not once was I ever given booze by a waitress who wasn't paying attention. Man, my childhood sucked. Well, everything old is new again, because we have reports of yet another child getting drunk on the sweet nectar. If it's not a drunk ass baby The Olive Garden then it's a drunk ass baby at Applebee's.

A restaurant in Clearwater, Florida is the latest establishment to be all trendy by serving liquor to a child. Two moms took their kids on a Mother's day outing to a place called Frenchy's South Beach Cafe. The kids had earned a "special treat" so the moms ordered them each a virgin strawberry daiquiri. The waitress hit the wrong button on the computer and the next thing they knew, two four year olds were partying like rock stars at Club Med. One of them drank the whole daiquiri in ten minutes which says two things: number one, frozen daiquiris are the bomb and number two, this kid a has a real future as a lush. The other child did not drink his which says one of two things: either the kid was holding out for a Guinness or the moms only ordered one strawberry daiquiri and they are saying that both kids drank them so the story sounds all that much more dramatical. Looking at the receipt, I only see one strawberry daiquiri, so "I'll go with 'moms being all dramatical,' for a thousand Alex."

 

Shortly after though, one kid "started acting a little strange, falling asleep, stumbling over things … then he started vomiting." Damn four year olds, can't ever hold their liquor. The child was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance where the doctors were probably like, "Yes a four year old should not be drinking daiquiris. I would suggest starting out with something like a wine cooler or maybe a gin and tonic. Also, it helps if they drink plenty of water as they go on their alcohol binge and always follow it up with a banana and an aspirin."

No charges are expected to be filed against the restaurant or the waitress since it was pretty clear that this was an accident and there was no intention to get a kid trashed on Mother's Day. The moms, understandably, want some kind of system in place so this doesn't "happen to another child, where they die," said one overly dramatic mom. It's called "plastic cups," people. That way you know that nothing alcoholic ever goes into plastic, kids never have a glass that might have alcohol in it and it also means when the kid knocks that shit over (and they will) the glass won't break.

It does seem to be happening a lot lately or maybe it happened all the time and thanks to videos and stories "going viral" we just hear about it more often now. Either way, it's my cue to go to Party City and buy myself a baby costume and head right over to my nearest Olive Garden, Applebee's or Frenchy's South Beach cafe and order a smoothie and keep my fingers crossed that it will show up as  a cocktail but they will only charge me the non-alcoholic beverage price.



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Will Waiters be the Next Dinosaur?

There is a vicious Internet rumor going around that the days of waiters and waitresses are numbered. We could be as extinct as the dinosaur, the dodo bird or Whitney Houston's vocal chords. According to a CNN article, the newest craze in the restaurant world are tablets that allow customers to place their own orders that will be sent directly to the kitchen thus eliminating the need a for a real live human server to talk to you. I assume these tablets do not require tips. According to the article, the tablets also provide games to help pass the time while waiting for your food and they even accept payment. Does this mean that my career is soon over? Twenty restaurants on the West Coast (rumored to be Applebee's) will be implementing these tablets soon. I guess if it takes off, then the tablets will sweep across the country rendering my ass out of job within a few months. But won't customers miss the warm personal interaction that they receive from a human being? This brings up many concerns:

• Customers cannot ask a tablet for its personal opinion on the special soup of the day. Will a tablet tell you that the creamy spinach soup tastes like ass?
  
• When you find a hair in your food, you really want to have a waitress to blame for it.
  
• If all orders are taken by the device, who will the cooks bitch at when they fuck up an order?
• If you go into an Applebee's with your toddler, you expect him to be served a margarita instead of apple juice. Will a tablet do that? I don't think so.
• What about senior citizens who can't even operate a DVR remote control? How in the hell are they supposed to figure out how to use a tablet to order a cup of extra hot decaf, a water with no ice and a bowl of chicken soup with no salt? And who will bring them their mug of hot water so they can rinse the silverware before they use it?
  
• Will dirty old men still feel the need to grab the ass of the tablet whenever it bends over to pick up something off the floor?
• If there are no waiters, who will be responsible for wiping down these dirty sticky tablets at the end of the day?
  
• How are tablets going to wear skid-resistant shoes from Payless?
• Who will drunk older women flirt with if all they have is a battery-operated device that can service all their needs? Oh, wait. Forget that one.
  
• What will happen when the tablets break down? And you know they will break down. Any restaurant turns into a cluster fuck when the computers go down for even a second, so what will customers do in this dire situation?
• If there are no waiters, who will managers suppress?
• How will a tablet take an undercooked burger back to the kitchen even though the customer asked for it medium rare and then ask the cooks to please burn the fuck out of the patty until it resembles a goddamn hockey puck?
  

These are things that must be kept in mind before we turn our restaurants over to the world of technology. Servers have an important role in restaurants that maybe some big corporations are forgetting. Customers like the feeling of being taken care of and a electronic tablet will simply not serve that need. We servers are there to treat our guests with respect and to make sure their dining experience is a good one. Our customers deserve the attention that only a human being can give them. A tablet will only offer a cold and impersonal experience to diners. For me personally, if a customer is going to have cold impersonal meal dealing with a machine that doesn't give a shit about them or what they order, I want to be that machine that provides them with that experience. Call me old-fashioned, but I care.

If you care about this national trend, please share this article with everyone in the whole entire world.

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Drunk Babies Are the New Black

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about a baby that went into an Applebee's as a sweet innocent toddler and came out as a drunk alcoholic 15 month old with addiction issues. Apparently, getting babies drunk is all the rage because it happened again this time at an Olive Garden in Florida. A two and a half year old boy was mistakenly served sangria instead of orange juice and he got all drunk and bleary eyed. The mother said that as they were eating, the waiter came over and whisked the cup away and just told them he had to get them another one. When the nosy mother asked why, the waiter explained the mix up. So wait. This waiter was going to just try to sneak it away without telling them what the fuck happened and try to pass it off as no big deal? He was seriously going to not tell them why he suddenly had to pull the cup away from the thirsty kid? He thought it was okay to not tell the mother that he had accidentally served her child sangria? I really like this waiter, but he could have stuck to his plan and not tell her that they got the baby trashed. He could have just said that he realized the glass was dirty or the orange juice was expired. Of course the worry-wart mom took the baby to the hospital and he is fine. C'mon. It's sangria from The Olive Garden. We all know that shit is mostly fruit punch with a tablespoon of cheap red wine thrown in it. But if The Olive Garden is going to start indiscriminately handing out sangria I may have to rethink my opinion on them.

Now I don't have a baby, but this got me to thinking. I have a plan. I want to wrap my dog up in a Snuggie and take him out to eat with me at Outback Steakhouse. I will order my "baby" a cranberry juice and tell them that he is getting over a urinary tract infection. When they bring his cup to the table, I will dump out the cranberry juice and substitute it with some Cosmo that I will have in my flask. I will then proceed to make a scene. "Oh my God! My baby is drunk! My baby is drunk. The dingo ate my baby! My baby is drunk! Who served a Cosmo to my precious baby? I will sue, I tell you! I will sue!!" At this point the manager will come out and ask me what the problem is. I will show him my baby and tell him that before he was served a Cosmo he was a perfectly fine baby. But now he is slurring his words, his eyes are bloodshot and he is covered in doggie fur. This is clearly the fault of the restaurant who accidentally served him a Cosmo. I will rush my baby to the veterinarian right after I phone 1-800-SUE-THEM to get my case set up. I will settle out of court for a lifetime supply of Bloomin' Onions® and Aussie Cheese Fries.

I don't know what's going out there in the world where servers are getting babies drunk. All I know is I have a shift tonight and if there is a baby within of ten foot radius of my station I am going to force feed it a tequila shot and make it play a round of beer pong with me. Drunk babies are fun!




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One Drunk Ass Baby

Have you heard about the world's luckiest baby who was served a margarita without being carded or even having to ask for it? This baby has my dream life. At an Applebee's in Michigan, a baby was mistakenly served a margarita instead of the apple juice his mother had ordered for him. I guess after a few sips of the sweet nectar known as Tequila, the 15-month-old boy started acting strangely. Although it is not official, I feel certain that the baby started drunk texting and coming on to the 8-month old girl at the next booth. In addition, his words were slurred and he was drooling. The mother opened up his sippy cup and realized that her baby was on the road to an AA meeting and he didn't even have his driver's license yet. Of course she complained (as she should have) and the manager apologized (as he should have.) The mother had this pearl of wisdom to say: "Nobody at the table ordered alcoholic drinks, so he definitely shouldn't have received one." Brilliant, mom. Like if someone had ordered a margarita it might be a little bit more understandable why they poured a freakin' margarita into a sippy cup and then gave it to the person in the high chair? But since no one ordered anything from the bar, it was extra super wrong for this to happen.

They took the baby to the hospital where his blood alcohol level was .10 -- over the legal limit for an adult driver. Hopefully, they took away the keys to his Big Wheel because parents don't let babies drive drunk. The kid was fine despite the massive hangover he had the next morning. The baby was quoted as saying, "Why do I always think I can handle that last cocktail? Never again. I need a Big Mac to soak up some of this alcohol. Mom, can I get a Happy Meal?" The mother reminded him that the Happy Meal may or may not have a toy in it. The baby replied by puking and crawling into the kitchen to make a Bloody Mary. "A little hair of the dog, then," said the lushy toddler.

No word on what Applebee's has done to make sure this does not happen again. I suspect more training will come into play where they will potentially ask to see some identification from anyone who orders a drink, alcoholic or otherwise. I would also suggest that they offer this baby a lifetime supply of Rose's Lime juice, triple sec and house tequila since they are the ones who introduced the kid to the joys of cocktails. Or to appease his mom, next time they could just slide him and apple martini.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

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