No Substitutions

It was supposed to be a quiet Sunday breakfast.  My younger brother was in town for the weekend so my family decided to rendezvous for brunch Sunday morning before he headed back upstate. My middle sister chose the place, a small pretentious pseudo-French bistro near the beach.

“Why are we going there?” I groused to Ryan as we drove over. “Their food is terrible. And overpriced.”

Ryan sighed.  “Last time they messed up my French toast,”  he said.  “Pretty ironic for a French restaurant.”

“Let’s just have bagels,”  I said, inspired.  “We’ll stop for lunch on the way home.”

When we walked into the near-empty restaurant we saw my two sisters, my brother and my brother-in-law standing in the cramped vestibule. “Why are you standing here?”  I asked.

“They refused to seat us until the whole party was together,”  said my brother, rolling his eyes.

“This room is empty,”  I said.  “It’s not like they need the table.”

Just then the hostess came up. “Eez your partee all complete, yes?”  she said in a fake French accent.

“Oui,”  said my brother, pronouncing it “Whee!”

She consulted a tablet. “Do you have ze reservations?”  she asked.

My middle sister has no patience. “Are you going to seat us or should we go to Panera?” she asked.

The hostess gave a little pseudo Gallic shrug.  “Right ziss vay,”  she said and took us way back to a round table next to the kitchen; she started laying out the menus.

“No,” said my sister, picking the menus right back up.  “We are sitting there.”  She pointed at the same sized table in the front of the restaurant next to the window. “Right this way,”  she said, leading,  and, out of habit, we all obeyed.

“Sacre bleu!”  said the hostess, following.

As we  sat down my sister’s husband, Judson, sighed.  “Are you done?” he asked my sister.

“I’m just getting started,” she said  and Ryan, who hates conflict, went pale.

Since I was determined to only have a bagel,  as everyone else looked at the menu I looked around the over-decorated room. It looked like a Staten Islander’s  re-creation of a French Chateau that he saw in Las Vegas.   A moment later the waiter came.  He wore a black and white horizontally striped shirt and had a long, waxed mustache, like Salvador Dali.  He also wore a beret at a rakish angle. “You are ready to order, yes?”  he asked in a fake French accent.

“Whee!”  said my brother.

“Nice hat,”  I said, and the waiter scowled.

Everyone ordered; an assortment of eggs, waffles and  French toast.   I ordered a bagel. Then it was my middle sister’s turn.

“I’d like the waffles with strawberries and bananas,”  she said levelly. “But I just want bananas, no strawberries.”  My sister  hates strawberries.

“That ees not possible,”  said the waiter.  He pointed to the menu.  “NO SUBSTITUTIONS!” it said in big letters.

“This is not a substitution,” said my sister levelly.  “It is a deletion.”

The waiter sighed. “Ze cook, he  does not have ze time to accommodate ze individual requests,”  he said.

“The restaurant is empty,”  Judson pointed out.  “What else does the cook have to do?” The waiter scowled and walked off.  He came back a long time later.  “Ze cook say he will make zis change just  zis once,”  he said, and my sister beamed.

It took forever but eventually breakfast came:  My bagel was burnt to a crisp and my sister’s waffles were smothered with what looked like a quart of strawberries.

“There has been a mistake,” said my sister. “I ordered just bananas, no strawberries.  Please take this back and give me bananas instead.”

“Je suis desolee,”  said the waiter.  “But zere are no substitutions.” He paused and smirked.  “Bon apetit!”