Can I get you a drink?

"Can I get you a drink?" We'd just arrived in the car park and there she was in the doorway, in her grubby red overalls, whose stains showed up in the daylight. A prostitute of beverages trying to cover up her true intent.

"Can we sit down first?" I responded crossly.

"Certainly, table for four?"

She could count, yet failed to bring childrens' menus. Perhaps the arithmetic had knocked out the child psychology.

"Can I get you a drink while you're waiting?"

"I thought you were the one who was waiting?"

"I'm sorry?"

Of course, straight over her head. A program instruction that the computer chip couldn't understand. Drinks, beverages and possibly hot or cold were the only terms that had been fed in.

"We'd like to choose our meals first, if that's OK?"

"Of course it is. Would you like a drink while you're choosing?"

"When we know what we're each going to eat, we'll choose a drink that goes with it; you know like red meat with red wine?"

"That's fine. You can choose any drink and it'll come with the meal you order."

"No, you don't understand..."

"But I'm afraid we cannot serve alcohol to children!"

My husband has had enough. "Look, we've travelled quite a long way to be here today and are out for a treat. We just want to be left alone to make our choices. Can you possibly serve two childrens' menus without the wine list please and then come back when we ask you to?"

"We do have drinking straws for the children," she ran her greasy hands nonchalently through hair that would soon find its way into every customer's mouth. She obviously mis-read my husband's approach as a form of liquid foreplay.

"I'm delighted to hear it; we'll use them to send semaphore signals at the appropriate time."

End of foreplay.

"There's no need to be so rude. I was a Girl Guide and can read the signs. One thing you learn very early on is that man cannot survive without water."