The Complaint – Short Stories
***WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT***
by Harry ter Haar
“Excuse – scuse – excuse – No. No. Apparently I don’t exist. Excuse me? I’m sorry to –“
“Coming.”
“Unbelievable… so you’re coming? Doesn’t look like it. Looks as though you’re doing anything besides coming to my table.”
Ah, finally… nope. No, I do not exist. Barely, anyway.
That’s it, I’m going to make a complaint. I never complain.
I’ve never made one complaint in my life, but it’s time people stopped treating me like this. I’m going to make a complaint. I’ve been here for forty-five minutes. Like you, I only have an hour for my lunch break and I wanted to get to the post office to get a new tax disk for my girlfriend’s crappy little car. It’s a mini metro. That’s why I came here, I thought it would be quick and simple. How long does it take to make mashed potato? Okay, a while but I doubt he’s out there mashing it himself. Well if he is, bravo, I stand mistaken. Look. The waitress has been treating me as if I’m a ghost. I’m going to make a complaint. Oh here she is… Ah, yes, that’s it, plonk it down like that and walk off. Great. I guess I’ll just eat this with my hands.
“Excuse me? Sorry, could I? Nope. I’ll get it. Why should you have to get it? I’ll get my own ketchup. You’re just the waitress, why should you have to do anything? Where is the ketchup?”
Of course. Sit down at my table why don’t you. There’s only a new plate of food, of course no one is sitting there.
“Oh, hi. Sorry, hi? Um, that’s mine.”
“Sorry, what?”
“That’s mine. I just went to get some ketchup. I was just
sitting there.”
“Oh sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. Sorry, thank you.”
Um, hello? You must be his girlfriend. Have you not just watched our chat? This is my table. Get up and fuck off. I said get up and fuck the fuck off! Thank you. Take your time.
“So tired. Why are there no tables?”
“I don’t know.”
What a great couple. Oh that’s right, just stand right behind me, breath down my neck. Don’t worry my own personal space doesn’t matter. Stand over me, put your face in my mashed potato why don’t you? Can you not see me shuffling in my seat and looking over my shoulder at you? Are you getting the hint and deliberately ignoring me? Hello?! Do you give a shit about someone’s personal space?! What the fuck?! Oh fuck it, let’s just eat and be gone.
Unbelievable. Seriously unbelievable. I hate Tuesd – what the f- oh that is – great! Nice! Nice, that’s lovely, right in the middle of my potato.
“This guy is on his own, he should be quick.”
Oh that’s very subtle, mate. Maybe I won’t be quick. Maybe I’ll be two hours here? Fifty minutes to be served mashed potato with a long black hair in it. I’m not one to complain. I hate complaining, but I should complain about this, right? I should complain. I just hate complaining. All I want is my lunch. That’s all I wanted. I just want to sit here, not be hassled, enjoy some mashed potato and sausages.
I’m not an unreasonable person. If someone asks me to do
something I do it, and I don’t get in a bad mood about things, and I do it properly. All you have to do is ask.
I haven’t even got time to complain about this, I have to be back in the office in a moment, and I didn’t even have time to do my girlfriend’s tax disk, she’s going to be so pissed off. She said it has to be done today. I could go and do it now, but then my boss would go mental at me for taking too long a lunch break. I should complain. It’s not acceptable to serve someone with a long black hair in their food. This lunch break has ruined my week.
“Excuse me, are you going to be much longer?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. I need to speak to the waitress, I
just found a hair in my food.”
“Let’s see?”
“That’s ridiculous, right?! I should complain, shouldn’t I?”
“It could be one of your hairs.”
“This thing? Look at it!”
“Hairs aren’t that bad. I find hairs fine. I find hairs in my food all the time. It’s normal. Maybe eat round it?”
“I shouldn’t have to eat round it!”
“I’m always finding hairs in my food. It really is fine. A
nail is different.”
Oh so the girlfriend pipes up too!
“Yeah, nail, spit… semen. Those are complain worthy.”
“Semen?! Pete, when do you ever find semen in your food?!”
“What?! When I was at school there was a guy who jizzed in the chips. He was the local pervert. We called him Stevie Chips.
“I hate it when you talk about your school, it’s so boring.”
“I’m just saying, a hair is fine.”
“You don’t think I should complain?!”
“It would be a bit unreasonable to complain when it’s as busy as it is. You should write a letter to them tomorrow if you want to complain.”
“It’s just I had to wait forty five minutes for my food, I
only have an hour for my lunch break, and I have to get the tax disk for my girlfriend’s car and the waitress has been really rude and barely treating me like a human.”
Oh that’s it, look at each other like that as if I’m a five year old having a tantrum! Very polite, you fucking wankers.
Eat round it. Why is no one ever on my side? If I complain
they will all think I’m a dick because it’s a busy restaurant and I’m just making things more difficult for the waitress. But if I don’t complain I’m just going to get walked all over and abused like I do by everyone in my life. I shouldn’t have to be doing my girlfriend’s tax disk anyway. She should be doing her own fucking tax disk! I don’t ask her to do my tax disk! I don’t ask anyone to do anything for me, and yet all the fucking time I’ve got people asking me to do everything for them and if I don’t then I’m the dick. I get served a meal; with a hair in it and I’m not allowed to complain. I have to eat it. It’s not normal to get a hair in your food, I don’t care what they say. Even if you go to McDonnalds you don’t expect a hair in your food. It’s fine to complain. Actually no, if I served my girlfriend a meal with a hair in it, she’d go ballistic! I’m going to complain… But everyone’s going to have a go at me. This happened at school. When I hit Michael Dobson for saying my haircut was gay everyone said I was bullying him! If I complain now these two will say I’m being unreasonable, the scary waitress will flip out at me, there’ll be a massive scene and everyone in the restaurant will say that I’m an arse-hole… But if I don’t complain then I’ll feel shit about myself for not standing up for myself and actually fighting for what I feel is right for me. This tax disk has been making me feel shit all day. She completely manipulated me into doing it for her. She was in a bad mood all night and morning so when she asked I had no choice but to do it, like my mother when she wants something; if you don’t agree to every tiny little thing she asks, she’ll either storm out of the room and slam the door or she’ll throw an ash tray at you. How can you – how am I meant to be able to – that’s not normal behavior.
Oh I’ll just eat it. Oh God – I mean, who’s hair is it?! Is the chef a man or a woman? Is it a man with long black hair? A woman? Do they wash their hair? Are they ill? What are they like? I bet the chef back there has an open shirt with lots of black pubes on his chest and is sweating as he cooks and allowing sweat to drip into the food, he’ll be stirring the food and will cough without putting his hand over his mouth; I’m going to get the most terrible flu now, I’m probably going to be up all night in the bathroom – my girlfriend says I’m a hypochondriac. She cooked me pasta with brazed cockles from a tin the other night. And I didn’t think that you could just warm cockles like that, I thought that’s like cooking cooked tuna from a tin and so all I did was sniff the food and she went mental! She said: ”why are you sniffing the food like that?! You’re so pathetic, and rude.” She then said she’s never cook for me again – just because I sniffed the food because I didn’t want to get ill. But then when I told my friend Freddie about this he said that I was unusually cautious about food and things like that, that I don’t like to get dirty, that I’m fussy. If someone served you brazed cockles, surely you would question it, right?! And if someone served you food with a hair in it you wouldn’t just eat it, would you? Or would you? Maybe I am fussy. Maybe I should just take the hair out and eat it all up. I just won’t tip her… But then if I don’t tip her, I’m the arse-hole. I’m going to be the guy who turned up and didn’t tip, and the waitress will go back to her friends and talk about me and say what a twat I am, even though she’s been rude, bad tempered and treated me like shit all night. I told my girlfriend last week that I didn’t tip someone because the service was terrible and she said I was a dick, and that I’d be a crap waiter and I don’t know what it’s like to be a waiter because my parents never made me work in the school holidays; and that I have no right not to tip because I don’t know what it’s like to work as a waiter. So again, I get treated like shit and I’m the dick. My girlfriend is allowed to be in a bad mood, she’s allowed to be rude to me, but the moment I say anything to her she flips. And yet when I’m in a bad mood, am feeling upset about valid things… I’m a twat for not tipping, it’s all my fault, I’m the bad guy; and then if I don’t talk about it because I don’t have anyone who will actually take my side then I’m told I’m a dick for being upset and I should snap out of it. If I don’t tip I should give a reason. I should tell her. I should say, “I’m not tipping because it’s been bad service and I had to wait for ages for my food, I had to get my own ketchup, and I had a long disgusting hair in my food.” No don’t say disgusting. That is like manipulating the evidence to make your point. It sounds weak and whiny. Just say a hair was in the food and show it to her – no you don’t need to justify yourself. Just say the whole meal was not worth the tip and you don’t need to explain why. If she asks then you can say. But you don’t need to explain yourself. You ate the food. You did your bit. You have been reasonable. You are paying for the meal, but you don’t have to tip.
“Excuse me, have you finished?”
“Yes, I just need to get the bill.”
“Excuse me? This guy needs the bill. Do you mind if I sit down?”
Do I mind if you sit down?! You rude fuck!
“Er, okay.”
Yup, clomp all your stuff down like that. Breath all over me and smother me with your big stupid coat.
“Actually sorry, I do mind a bit actually.”
“Oh.”
“It’s okay. But, um, what difference does it make if you’re leaving in a second?”
“Beth, leave it.”
“No, I was just asking.”
“It’s just – okay, don’t worry. You can sit there.”
“Thank you.”
This is bullying. This is pure bullying. I’m a thirty year old man who earns over thirty grand a year and I’m being bullied by this half Asian little twat.
“That’s eight pounds eighty.
“Thank you.”
“Do you need any change?”
“Er, yes please.”
Oh so now it’s okay for you to scoff at me? You ignore me, serve me food with no knife and fork and now scoff at me? Lovely.
“You’re not going to tip the lady?”
Oh so now it’s your business too?!
“No, I’m not.”
“Wow.”
I’m not going to cave. I’m not going to cave to their guilt tripping. I know my own truth. I’m not going to tip. I’m not complaining, but I’m not going to tip. That’s the fair middle ground. Oh right, slam the change down like that. Wow. Okay. Okay.
“Sorry, is there a problem?”
“No, darlin’ no problem.”
“I’m sorry I’m not giving a tip. I’m happy to give you my
reasons if you’d like to hear them?”
“Give me a break.”
“She’s working here all on her own, mate.”
“It don’t matter. Have a nice day, mate. What can I get you two to drink?”
“Fine. Here. Have a twenty pound tip.”
“Oh. Thank you. You have a great day. What can I get you two?”
so you’re actually going to take my twenty pounds?! AMAZING! AMAZING! Oh this is something! I’ll just leave you all to it now, shall I? Okay, everything here is just normal behavior. Okay. Yup, really normal.
Why can’t I stand up for myself? Why can’t I go over there
and stand up for myself? Why can’t I have some integrity and stand up for what I think is right?! When, what’s her name, that black woman sat in white person’s bit of the bus and people gave her shit for it, would I have said something?! Or rather if I was that black woman, would I have stood up for myself? Nope. I would have just sat in the black section where I was told and would have stayed a slave all my life. No civil rights movement if I was the black woman. They didn’t even let me explain. I’m the bad guy. I’m the bad guy because I did what I thought was right. I’m always the bad guy. They stand behind me, bullying me into eating that disgusting food, and then they – or whatever they said. I don’t earn very much. What I do earn goes on rent, bills and things like my girlfriend’s tax disk. This is just like school, when Rob Boughton and everyone else used to ask me for an Aero, knowing I couldn’t say no. And when I did once stand up for myself and say no they all called me stingy. She took my twenty! She took my fucking twenty! I should go over there and pick up that plate and throw it in the kitchen. I should go buy a machine gun and mow the whole fucking cafe down. I don’t know how to be a man, I don’t know how to walk around the world with integrity, instead I pay thirty pounds for a meal with a hair in it and get shit for it. I’ll tell myself now as I walk back to work that ‘next time’ I’ll stick up for myself. But I won’t. Because I never do. Because I’m spineless. Just like my father.
Raining. Of course it is. Go do this fucking tax disk.
