Jessy Delfino's Blog

SORRY I CRIED AT BRUNCH
by Jessica Delfino

Yesterday, I had the worst brunch experience of my life. The fact that I am even chalking the experience by the name "worst brunch experience of my life" is quite revealing, I would think, but I don't mean for it to be. I never get to go out to brunch, which made it even worse.

When I DO get to go to brunch, 'cause I have a few extra bucks or a friend has offered to treat, I usually go to Stingy Lulu's on St. Marks and Ave A. I love going there, because the food is usually very good, the service is usually pretty decent, the food is reasonably priced ($10) and included with that price is ALL YOU CAN DRINK BLOODY MARYS!!! Awesome - who doesn't love getting tanked at one on a Sunday? Can anyone say "me?" I didn't think so.

Well, we got there around 2 - Chris, Harry, Victor and I. We got a big nice booth, which is always a must. But we immediately discovered our waiter was at best incompetent and at worst, incredibly high AND incompetent. He made us wait 40 minutes for menus, and an hour later, we were still waiting for our Bloody Marys, coffee and tea. So, I decided to get up and investigate, because we hadn't even SEEN our waiter for the better part of the hour. I walked over to the bar and said, "Hi, we've been waiting for drinks for an hour. I was just thinking maybe I could carry them to the table to help our waiter out. He seems very busy." It WAS really busy. She told me to wait and so I sat back down. About ten minutes later, he came over with three Bloody Marys for the two drinkers at the table. We downed them instantly, and almost instantly, he brought us three more.

Across the aisle, the couple heard us complaining that the service was lacking. She said the waiter had to bring her husband's food three times because the order was messed up. She said they'd been there two and a half hours and were never coming back.

Meanwhile, I'd gotten instantly loaded from the three bloody marys I inhaled, and now drunk with no food in my stomach, starving and lit, I began to get loud and cranky. I got up again and went to inquire about the coffee and tea which never appeared. Finally, a bus boy came to our table and I asked him nicely to please help our waiter out because he seemed like he was probably drowning in orders. Almost two hours in, we finally got our food. My order was fucked up. I tried to send it back, but the table of ravenous man people devoured it before I could even give it to the waiter. So, I asked him to please bring me another one, the right way. He said they were out of homefries and so I'd have to have french fries, and brought my eggs florentine on burnt toast instead of a warm english muffin. So, I complained again and he said to wait a minute. He brought us yet another round of Bloody Marys, which we sucked down instantaneously. At that point, I got up and went to the kitchen myself and said, "I've been waiting for my food for over two hours. Can I please just have the french fries and eggs on burnt toast?" I then began sobbing, as I was starving and totally wrecked on the BMs. They were very sympathetic, and gave me someone else's order with ham on it. I removed the ham, being a vegetarian, and gobbled it down. At this point, we'd gotten ANOTHER round of Bloody Marys, so I'd drank like 6 of them on an empty stomach. We paid the bill, which they very kindly pro-rated, and then got the hell out of there. I can't be sure, because I was quite drunk, but as I was leaving, I think I shouted, "This is the worst brunch experience I've ever had!"

Once we all got outside, I apologized to my friends for crying at brunch.

The moral of this story is, I think "Sorry I cried at brunch" would make a good tee-shirt.