
Em, Ash, Michael and I decided to do a little wine touring. We hit Red Rooster, we hit Ruby Blues, we sampled, we sipped, we bought some wine and then we ended up at Hillside Estates. The wine there wasn't what we were looking for, but the tasting fees went to the SPCA which made me happy because the current SPCA ads in Vancouver make me cry every time I see it (it's of a one eyed dog named Percy who they refer to as a "chronic winker").
Anyways, after the tasting we went for lunch at Hillside's bistro and after a while we realized the sun was swinging around and we were all going to get fried, so we moved to a shadier table.
Our meals arrived: salad with prawns for Em; a smoked salmon sandwich for me; and burgers for Michael and Ash. One of them said it was the best burger they'd ever had, and my sandwich was unbelievable. It was a beautiful setting, a stunning day with exceptional service and, therefore, we were all in a rather high spirits.
And then it happened.
As we were eating I felt something wet drip down on me from above. The second time it happened I mentioned it to Michael who said perhaps it was condensation from an AC unit above, and so I slid my chair to the side.
I believe the next victim was Emily, who brushed it off.
Then "it" landed next to Ashley's plate and she was adamant that what was dripping onto us was actually much more nefarious than we had originally anticipated: it was spit.
It had the consistency of spit. It had the appearance of spit. I would not believe that it was spit. Where could the spit possibly have come from? Who in their right mind would be spitting on diners on a patio in Naramata?
Michael volunteered to go check it out and Ashley gave up on her hamburger and shortly joined him. Em and I stayed and had a nice chat, all the while waiting for Michael and Ash to bound down the stairs and explain away the random... wetness.
They were gone a while.
I commented that it was likely not good news that they hadn't immediately reported back.
They reported back.
Apparently some shithead kids were up on the patio above and thought it would be a hilarious idea to spit over the deck and on to our table.
I don't know. Likely they're from Surrey. I saw them upon exit (cough: trash). And possibly they are really poor and so all they can afford for entertainment are spitting contests because they don't have a bocce ball set. Perhaps they were the result of cousins marrying. If I had to guess? They drove off in a rental Chrysler 300 with cool rims and their next stop was to get some more tattoos, and then be disappointed that Slack Alice's burnt down, before stopping off for some McD's and Wild Turkey and calling it a night.
Regardless, it put a damper on what had been a wonderful day.
Michael asked his mom and his sister how we should have handled it, and I think we all handled it the best we could, because we have class and manners and were raised well. But really I think the gist of Michael's question was: "How do we get justice?". And I think that this is one instance in life where, in the short term, you don't get justice, which is very frustrating.
I tried to put it into perspective by bringing up the behaviour of Michael's cousin's young kids at Marian's birthday: they were so well behaved and (frighteningly) eloquent. I posited that for these wonderful boys (who knew to take their shoes off without even being asked, before they went into the house) to exist, there had to be their evil equivalents out there.
Ash suggested that probably not all of the kids were the biological offspring of the tattooed father there (unbeknownst to him).
But Michael could not have put it more aptly when he fingered these kids as children that would grow up to be adults that would not fly in from Vancouver or Calgary or Halifax for their mother or grandmother's 80th birthday (plus, there's no way you could fit the number of loving relatives that we had here on August 7th into one of those trailer park abodes to begin with).
Anyways, the moral of the story is that I told Ash and Em to give us a call if they saw the family and we'd trash their car.
You were all SO much nicer than I would have been. I'd have had their classless asses booted out.
ReplyDeleteAt least the food was great!
We couldn't get them booted out, as it was essentially our word against theirs.
DeleteThe food was awesome.
So in other words you guys did nothing and just took it, because that's class and manners?
ReplyDeleteJust so I'm clear, you guys checked it out, saw the people responsible for spitting on you, and did nothing?
Just so you're clear: not one of the four of us saw anyone in the act of spitting. We were a party of one guy and three girls. I did not go upstairs: Michael and my niece did. When they confronted the party (which spanned two tables) they were told there was no way their son (or sons) could have done it, because they weren't "tall enough" to reach over the railing.
DeleteClearly their children did do it (or maybe I missed the boat and it was one of the goddamn parents), but we had no way of proving it.
Taking the high road, I asked our waitress to fetch the manager. By the time she came back (sans manager) she said it would essentially be our word against theirs, as no one saw anything specific. (I wonder, additionally, if the manager had ventured to the upstairs deck and was a)somewhat intimidated by the class of clientele and b)fearful that they might feign indignation and stiff him with the bill.)
While all of this was happening, said family made a stealth escape, widely skirting our table.
As much as it would have capped off an otherwise epic day by engaging in fisticuffs with either small children, their trailer-trash, wedge-sandal wearing mother, or their large tattooed father, I decided instead to post rationalize it and take solace in my belief that, twenty years from now, those little shits will still be little shits.
Only bigger.
Burden of proof rears it's ugly head once again.....
ReplyDeleteThat really sucks though, no bueno situation. I'll be sure to raise my boy not to spit on people. If that fails, I'll get a lot of tattoos in the hopes of intimidating gutless managers so that they can get away with their shennanigans. Like daddy.
Yes: teaching one's child not to spit on others is certainly a valuable lesson that will behoove him in later years.
DeleteOft, I have had to hearken back to the wise words of my parents as they gently advised "Spitting is not the answer".
Fun fact of the day, if you're in Texas, and someone spits on you, you can retaliate and claim self defence. I don't know if it qualifies for stand your ground though.. maybe in Florida...
DeleteOddly, you are the second person to point this out to me. If only I had been armed with this information beforehand...
DeleteKnowledge is power!
Delete