today is St. Patrick's Day and that reminds me of cabbage and cabbage reminds me of Mama. I call this The Cabbage Incident - Mama loved cabbage better than anything. She wasn't cooking so much anymore so whenever I went over I'd cook her a pot of cabbage. A little restuarant down the street had cabbage as a special every Wednesday. Mama always wanted to go there on Wednesdays. She'd call me on the phone and say "It's cabbage day!" On this particular Wednesday, my Mom, me, my daughter and grandson (age 4) and my son's girlfriend went out to lunch for "cabbage day". We had eaten there the week before and the service was rotten. We left a penny tip (suppose to mean bad service). As we walked into the crowded room, we heard one waitress say to another "here they come, the ones who left the penny". That should have forewarned us of things to come.. We had the same waitress, unfortunately, and if we thought service was bad the week before, that was nothing compared to now! She was rude and short with us and snippy. She slammed the silverware and beverages down without a word. Mama was oblivious. She was in her own world anyway and was only thinking about cabbage. The rest of us remarked on how rude the waitress was. When my Mom ordered, she jokingly said to hurry up with the cabbage as she was starving. I don't remember what the waitress answered but it wasn't pleasant. After the waitress left, we all grumbled about how rude she was and how she had spoken to Mama. My son's girlfriend ( young and brash and outspoken) couldn't believe the waitress' behavior. The owner of the restuarant was sitting in a chair against the wall. My son's girlfriend ( Lalauni) went over to him and complained about the waitress' behavior. The owner defended her saying, she was his oldest and best waitresss and he didn't believe her. An argument ensued between them. As it was escalating, our waitress returned and I, deciding to take a stand, said we were leaving and to forget our orders. We had been served drinks and I had a cup of soup. The waitress hands me the bill and I threw it down on the table and said we weren't paying it because the service had been so poor. And we prepared to leave. Mama was disgruntled because she didn't get her cabbage. We asked another waitress to get Mama's order to go. In the mean time, the waitress had gone over to the manager who was still arguing with Lalauni and told him we were refusing to pay. He jumped and ran over to our table and yelled "Get the hell out of here. Get out". Everyone in the restuarant was staring at us and it was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop. We started to leave with Mama hobbling along behind with her walker, grumbling about her cabbage and my daughter carrying her son. The manager trailed along behind us continuing to yell and Lalauni yelling and cussing right back. It must have made quite a sight. I had never seen anyone act like this manager before. It was ridiculous. Another waitress ran after us with Mama's to go cabbage dinner. I was livid. I had never been thrown out of anyway before. Mama was happy because she got her cabbage but upset because in all the commotion we didn't pay for it. It was a day that is still ingrained in my grandson's memory and mine! We often speak about it. On the way home, I apologized to Mama and told her how sorry I was that it had happened. She looked at me and said " there's one thing I can say about your family, it's never boring!" ( I have never gone back to that place and never will- Mama went back on a regular basis, but without us. Her husband returned the next day and paid for everything) I miss my Mom!

nyanbenmommy1- thank you!