Happy birthday to meeeee
For my 18th birthday, my parents took me to a rather posh Italian restaurant that we'd heard about for quite some time but had never visited. We sat down, ordered, and I have to admit the food was lovely...the restaurant was another story.

First, the drunk woman. Now, I know it's customary to drink wine with Italian food. But she was shit-faced on the house red and it wasn't even nine at night. Unfortunately, this was the kind of woman who became very talkative when drunk, and she felt that she needed to gesture wildly to prove her point. Anyway, after finishing one sentence, she made a final gesture with her refilled wine glass and smacked it back down on the table for emphasis. Only, she missed the table, and threw it to the floor right next to me, where it shattered to bits and a large chunk of it ricocheted against my arm (no blood, phew).

So the waiters cleaned Drunky up, she paid, and she left. Soon we decide we ought to leave, too, as we were getting a decidedly bad vibe. We gave the waiter our credit card. Business as usual, right? Well, we waited for our card to be returned...and we waited...and we waited...

Where the cock was our credit card?

We asked the waiter, and his response was, "I just gave it back to you."

Funny. I reckon we would have remembered getting a credit card back, as we would have had to sign the cheque.

Now, my da isn't exactly the largest, most imposing man, but NEVER try to argue something like this with him. He will mop the floor with your lame little argument, wring you out, and drop you back in the bucket where you belong. The waiter dashed off to get the owner of the restaurant, who turned on the charm and said, "Oh, sir, sorry, this happens all the time. We must have had this happen 25 times already tonight!"

Needless to say, we didn't buy that for one second. It's essentially impossible to lose 25 credit cards in a wee room like that. Unless, of course, someone "lost" it down their trouser pocket.

So my da told him in no uncertain terms to go find this credit card, along with the other 24 the restaurant had supposedly lost in the past three hours. I sensed some theatrics were needed, so I put on my best why-did-you-have-to-wreck-my-birthday-by-stealing-our-credit-card face. Eventually the manager told us, so, so sorry sir, when we find it we'll post it back to you...just give us your address!

By now we sensed that something was seriously amiss and we got the hell out of there, went home, and reported the credit card stolen by those twunts.

So that's how my family got an 70 quid meal at a posh restaurant, free!

Apologies for length...but I have to say, it was the best Italian meal I'd ever had.
( KersaI Missive Free Michael Shields! with Monday's Liverpool Echo, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 4:57, Reply)