There's A Tartar Sauce Joke In Here Somewhere

So last weekend...

We got up on Saturday and had nothing to do. We were a little hung over, so we made brunch and then proceeded to do nothing but play xbox and hangout all day. At one point we were watching a PBS show called 1900 house, and on said show they talked briefly about the history of fish and chips in England. They showed greasy fish and chip goodness, and Chris and I both agreed that it looked delish. We were planning on going to a late (10:10pm) movie, and we decided that we should go out for fish and chips beforehand.

We got to the restaurant, a fast food and surveyed the crowd. It was late for dinner (9pm-ish), so there was only one normal-looking person there, and another guy, who appeared to be sleeping in his booth. The booth was in such a position that the people working the counter couldn't see him. He looked kind of homeless, and smelled a little like pee, but whatever. Not an unusual sight. Homeless guy catching a nap in a warm place. Harmless.

We ordered, got our food, and sat down. I could see the weird guy kind of stirring, but no big deal. (Chris had his back to the guy.) Until about 5 minutes later, weird guy starts jacking off. Jacking the fuck off. It was totally an OMG! moment, and Chris was like "should I go and tell them?" and pointed towards the counter. I nodded, and off he went.

There was only a young girl and an even younger guy working at the time. The girl apologized, and called someone on the phone, who walked in 2 minutes later. He was clearly the manager of the place, and he walked up to weird guy and started talking to him. I could only hear the manager, and not weird guy, but this is what I heard:

"It's time to leave."
"Well you can take it with you."
"Do you want me to call you a cab?"
"Okay, do you want City Cab or Yellow Cab?"

The manager then went behind the counter and made a phone call. Cool, situation handled. Except then 2 minutes later, the guy is at it again. Chris got up and spoke to the manager directly this time, who went straight over to weird guy's booth again. This time the manager took the guy's tray away, and I heard:

"Okay, you have to leave."
"We're closing, it's time to go"

And at that point, weird guy starting JACKING OFF IN FRONT OF THE MANAGER! The manager left and went into the back. Chris and I assumed he was calling the police. What else are you gonna do, right?

We're almost done with our meal at this point. I would like to state that if we had known this debacle was going to go on for so long, we probably would have gotten our food to go and left immediately. But we were pretty sure the situation was just about rectified.

So five minutes later we get up to leave. Weird guy is still there, and intermittently doing his business. As we get up to visit the trash can, the manager comes out and tells weird guy:

"Your cab is here."

Sure enough, there is a cab outside. Weird guy stands up, ZIPS UP HIS PANTS, and heads for the door. We were out the door before he was, but on our way out of the parking lot we could see him getting into the cab. I have never felt sorrier for a cab driver in my life.

Moral of the story? Never eat at Picadilly Fish and Chips in Salt Lake City. I don't blame the restaurant for the situation, but I don't think they could have handled it more poorly. A man is exposing himself in your restaurant, customers are complaining, and the man won't respond to your attempts to kick him out. I think at that point you call the police. You don't call a cab and pawn the problem off on the cab company. I'm all for not wanted to get a guy whose obviously really down on his luck arrested, but, dude? The guy was wacking it in front of you. I think you are justified in doing pretty much whatever you want at that point.

posted by Ami @ Friday, February 02, 2007