Second Impressions Count

I love when first impressions are wrong. I love when the world sneaks up on you and shows that people are more complicated and interesting than the first three seconds of a meeting can illuminate. For instance, the other night I was working an event at the club. It was a terrible night. There were two servers (I was one), one chef, ten reservations (all at the same time, natch), five or six walk-in parties, forty-minute ticket times and one very stressed out server (me again, natch).

One of our ten reservations dared to be twenty minutes late, so when they finally arrived we put them into the bridge room where I thought they belonged. The bridge room isn't a terrible room, but it is away from all the action in the bar area where we sat nearly everyone else. My reasoning at putting them there was that they seemed dull. A mother and her three kids. A quiet mother and her three quiet kids whom I have never seen before. Now, let me explain why I found this to be such an egregious character flaw. Everyone at the club knows everyone else. The club sits in the middle of a gated community on the outskirts of an upper middle class, white flight, newly minted city, Johns Creek (which I've taken to calling Jacks Crack). The people usually fall within recognized character types: The wives are either youngish second wives or are first wives with a boob job. The husbands work in town, drink too much, are insane about college football and think Obama was born in Kenya.

This woman and her family didn't seem to fit into this type. She was a first wife (obviously) but with no boob job or loud personality ( Oh Mary Claire, after a bottle of chardonnay you are such a hoot!) When their order was running about thirty minutes late, I went over and apologized. She and her family laughed that they had no where else to be so it was no big deal. Having had all I could take that night of the other members' faux martyrdom, stage whispers and general bitchiness, I could have hugged this poor woman. I was wrong. I mistook patience for dullness and kindness for blandness. I faulted her for being an outsider when an outsider was just what I needed that night.

For saving my sanity that night I gave the family the internationally-recognized gift of love. Free Key Lime Pie.