Eight for the April Complainers

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It’s been a few turns since I’ve vented my spleen shared by little annoyances with you, dear readers. I’m not in my usual gay and cheerful springtime mood, probably because I had twelve inches of heavy, wet snow followed by icy rain this past Thursday and Friday. Oh, and did I mention my power, internet and cell service going out for three days? Ha ha! What a lark. If TS Eliot had lived in Maine, his fingers would have been too frozen to write “April is the cruelest month.”

Thrown into a peevish frame of mind, I tend to dwell on other irritants, insults and injuries. Which means you, dear readers, get to hear about them in convenient list form.

 

Unrecyclable pill bottles. Okay, I acknowledge this is petty ante. On an individual level. But they add up – boy, do they add up. I have two prescriptions I fill every thirty days. Twenty-four of the little orange plastic bottles and their tops a year. Almost one hundred over the past four years. Two hundred in eight years, etc., etc. And there’s NOTHING you can do with all those bottles! I’ve used a couple to store coins in foreign currency. A couple more to hold Tylenol and ibuprofen in my purses. After that, I’m stumped. Too small for almost any other use, the pharmacy won’t take them back, and it’s not the right kind og plastic for my town’s transfer station.

I’ve gotten to the point where every time I take my amlopedine, I picture a giant raft of pill bottle floating in the Pacific Ocean. Which is not doing much for my blood pressure, I assure you.

 

Grocery stores with no one available to ask questions.  I have to say, I hadn’t noticed this as much until I went to the second Market Basket to open in Maine. (There are two.) It was wonderful! So. Many. Employees. Someone to help me find the grapefruit. Someone to check if the sales price was still good. Someone whisking the abandoned cart in the parking space away before I even had the chance to grab it!

It was an eye-opening contrast to my usual store, where I wander lonely as a cloud if I have a question. They used to have a customer service counter/check out, but that’s gone now. I guess it was a warning.

 

“Dollar stores” whose prices have gone from a dollar to $1.25 and now as high as $7!  I think we can all agree this is basically a crime against humanity. Allegedly, the C suites at these companies have noticed “people with money” shop there, and therefore process can go up. How do they know that? I, personally, have never had to show my most recent tax filing to the clerk ringing up my bleach, birthday cards and movie candy.

 

The eternally changing recommendations for healthy eating.  My last doctor told me to stop eating an egg daily, it was contributing to my high blood pressure. The current doctor told me eggs are fine. We were supposed to not diet, and listen to our natural hunger signs. No, now that’s wrong (admittedly, my natural hunger signs are for M&Ms and Oreos.) Protein is good. Too much protein is bad. Avoid carbohydrates. You need carbohydrates.

I’m considering adopting my grandmother Greuling’s eating plan: bread with every dinner, lots of canned, salty vegetables, 4-5 Pall Malls a day and one glass of port in the evening while knitting and watching TV. She lived until a week before her 89^th birthday, and never needed any care other than some help with the housework in the last few years.

 

Ads on subscription services I already pay for.  Amazon Prime, I’m looking at you: not only am I paying with both my wallet and my eyeballs, but I’m increasingly presented with a menu of viewing options consisting of two or three great shows I want to stream and eight thousand warmed-over two-star duds. P.S., I immediately mute the ads and scroll on my phone until they’re done.

 

Restaurants that present the “bill” on an ipad.  First off, I have spent too many years nagging my kids to put their electronic devices down in restaurants to bend the line for the restaurant itself. Second, I don’t want a “convenient email receipt.” I’m not an idiot; I know this means I’ll be getting emails from The French Farmers Table, and anyone it sells my info to, for the rest of my life. Third, I tip well. Twenty percent on the whole, tax included, and I round up. I find myself getting viscerally offended when I see those handy pre-loaded tip amounts, which lately start at 25% and go up. Also, I’m sus, as the kids say, about just who gets all that tip when it’s totally electronic.

 

Interesting new recipes I can make almost entirely from what I have in my pantry EXCEPT for one have-to-have-it spice/curry/sauce that’s only available via mail-order from a specialty store in NY or DC. (Yes, I get these recipes from the NY Times and the Washington Post, which is undoubtedly part of the problem.) Please, recipe section editors, take pity on those of us in flyover country. Yes rural Maine is definitely fly-over country.

 

Dear readers, what little irritants are getting up your nose this week?

Photo credits from top to bottom: Macwagon (Flickr), Advantus Media, Amazon, Imanoj Menon (Flickr)

Rhys on Tips and Tipping

Thoughts on Service and Tipping

We are in the middle of an extended European trip and I’ve come to realize that anything we budget for travel gets multiplied by the amount of money we have to tip. We tip the taxi driver and while we are tipping him the bell boy has whisked our bags into a hotel and wants a tip to release them again to another bell boy who will carry them upstairs and want another tip.

I was horrified to read the amount we are supposed to tip on our upcoming river cruise. Twenty dollars a day EACH? You are serious? So actually the advertised cruise price is $300 more because I am paying part of your staff’s salary.  The same is true for waiters in the US. They are paid a ridiculously small amount because the restaurant owners know it will be made up with tips. Thus one feels obliged to tip, even if the service is so-so.

How I love it in France where tipping in restaurants is a thing of the past. Just rounding up a Euro or two is sufficient, also in Germany. But isn’t the whole purpose of tipping a reward for good service? Am I supposed to tip the surly waiter who, when asked by my husband what beers they carried, replied, “You can read the list on the back of the menu.” And it was a good restaurant, at an outdoor table, with just a candle at our table, making it impossible to read anything.

Another gripe I have is waiters treating me as if I’m one of their buddies. We once went to a very expensive restaurant for our anniversary—you know, the type where you have to book way in advance? We were placed at at table directly under the air-conditioning. We complained and were told this was the only table available and other diners had said they were too hot. Also the waitress referred to us as “You guys.” I don’t know about you, but when I go somewhere special I want to be treated as if I’m somewhere special.  I am not YOU GUYS. I am ma’am.

 A few weeks ago I was at Amazon headquarters and taken to a lovely restaurant by my editor and author team. We were greeted as if they’d been looking forward to seeing us. We were escorted to our table in the window.  We were talked through the menu, questions on preparation were answered.  Each dish arrived at the same time for all four of us, the maître de came to explain what we were eating. When we prepared to leave someone was standing with our coats ready for us to put on, AND our car was waiting outside the front door. NOW, that is service!  It made us feel special and appreciated and that is what one wants, isn’t it?

When my son was in drama school in New York he was also a waiter at a restaurant on Time Square. I went to eat there one night and watched him working a table. He was attentive, witty, funny. He made each dish sound fantastic and he recommended pairings of alcohol with each course. I’ m sure he made them spend more than they intended to, but they were having a really good time. He had turned it into an experience. Toward the end of the meal they looked across to me, having been told that I was his mother. “We love your son,” they said.  Since he was a musical theater major he would also serenade people on their anniversaries and special occasions. They loved that too.

So what about you? What are your feelings on tipping? Do you wish it was completely abolished and we paid a little extra up front?