Thursday Three: Anticipation

This week’s Thursday Three is all about waiting. Terry posts the following:

We’ve still got a good week left before even CONSIDERING doing an All Holy Day Version--this week, you’re just gonna have to WAIT. Or, you know, participate in today’s rendition of the game that’s sweeping the nation, the Axis of Weevil Thursday Three, Unbearable Anticipation Edition!

Huzzah!

As is the custom, we will ask you three probing and insightful questions (or three just-regular questions) and you will either answer them in the comments below, or leave a link to your blog so we can run thither and gape at your answers there.

SO, what sort of questions today?

Well, as we noted, this is all about the thrill of waiting, so--

1) Have you ever camped out overnight to be able to purchase something? If so, what was it?

2) If your service in a restaurant has been abysmally slow because of the waiter, do you withhold a tip from the waiter, leave a penny or two for spite, leave something a bit smaller than a 15% tip, or go ahead and tip 15% or more just so if you come in again in the future, the waiter won’t spit in your food if he remembers you?

3) Do you ever listen to “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” on NPR?

Now! Run away and answer the questions as quickly as you possibly can without delay! First one up gets a free autographed picture* of Ralph Waite!
1)No, I have never camped out overnight for anything. I’ll show up a few hours early, but that’s it. In fact the best seats I ever got for a concert were purchased after it sold out. Larry and I were in England for our Junior semester abroad (I was at the University of Lancaster and he was at University of Warwick). We had gone to the Birmingham Odeon to pick up some concert tickets. While standing in the lobby I noticed posters for OMD that had “sold out” plastered all over them. The concert was coming up soon and I thought *maybe* it wasn’t completely sold out. I asked the ticket lady and she said “Just a minute love” and trundled to the back of the office. A moment later she reappeared and said she had two in the back row. At that point some sort of madness seized me and I asked if she had anything better. She nodded and disappeared again. A few minutes later she came back and said she was sorry, all she had left was two tickets. One was in the third row and the second was in the forth, but one was right behind the other. I happily accepted the tickets and paid for them. It turns out they were guest passes that had been turned back in. They looked a bit funny, but they were good.

2)I spent a summer waitressing at a mid-level pseudo-Lebanese restaurant called Landers (As an interesting side note here is a neat story of a former patron. Key quote about her longevity: “Perhaps the trick is that Alice drinks Manhattans or beer every night, Allison said, and eats ice cream after every meal.”) that catered to tour buses. As a result it takes truly appalling service for me to reduce the tip. Generally I am a generous tipper especially if the kids are particularly messy. However, one time I went to a Perkins (pre-kids) in Madsion, WI that reached the absolute nadir of service. It started off poorly with the waitstaff unable to bring out my beverage. Everyone else at the table got their sodas, but I did not get my milk. After about four reminders I finally marched back to the station in back and buttonholed a waiter. I stood there and waited for him to pour me my milk. The meals took forever to come out (we’re talking over an hour). The capper to the evening was a hunk of glass on my piece of cake. I left a penny as tip to make clear my disappointment and we never went back.

3)Nope. I don’t listen to a whole lot of radio. In the car and in the house we generally listen to our cds. Occasionally we’ll listen to Car Talk if we bump into while we are driving about.

So to sum it all up: no, yes and nope.