Clean Up.... Table 20

The lady at table 20 first came to my attention shortly after she spilled a full mug of hot tea on the business man at the next table. I'm not sure how she did it, he was on the far end of the next table and there were a few people in between. He wasn't hurt, but had to leave immediately to go home and change clothes before an important meeting. The lady at table 20 (let's call her Liz), didn't apologize- in fact she really didn't acknowledge the situation. She just requested more hot tea and sat there in the corner with a smirk on her face as she waited.

Liz's salmon salad came out to the table, along with the tea. She refused the salad-- said that she had requested BBQ sauce on it instead of salad dressing. The salad was sent back and a new one was returned-- with BBQ sauce. Liz picked up the salmon fillet with her fingers and mashed it into her tea mug while the server was still standing there. "Is there anything wrong with the salmon?", he questioned.

"What do you think?", she replied.

"I don't know-- I like the salmon. I had it for lunch myself today and thought it was incredible."

"Well, I don't think Bob would like it", Liz said.

Not knowing who Bob was, the server asked if he could bring her anything else. She said "Yes. What else do you have?". The server offered to bring her a menu. She requested another salmon salad, more hot tea and a glass of water.

While she was waiting for her 2nd salad, she waved down the server again and told him "I hate to foil your plan- but everyone on this boat needs to get off right now." Just then the muzak could be heard playing a Patsy Cline song , "Crazy". Pretty appropriate.

The server said he didn't know what she was talking about, and she demanded to see Bob. Our General Manager, David, went to the table next. He introduced himself and asked if he could get her anything else. "Well, I asked to see Bob, not you."

"We don't have anyone named Bob working here", he said.

"You may not have a Bob on your payroll, but there is a Bob that works here and I want to see him." In the backroom, we were all drawing straws to get to see who would get to play Bob.

A few minutes later, I looked into the dining room and saw that table 20 was empty. I breathed a sigh of relief, until I turned around to see Liz behind me talking to the servers in the kitchen. She was holding one girls hand and pleading with her to get off the boat as soon as possible, and to make sure that Bob and everyone else got off, too.

David got her out of the kitchen and back to her table. He gave her her check and asked that she pay and leave. "I only have $5, and you can't make me leave", was her response. Well, by this point she had already had appetizers, 2 entrees, lots of hot tea and a dessert.

"Ma'am", David said "You don't have to pay, but I need you to leave now". With that she picked up her glass of water, took a small sip and then poured the remainder of the glass on David's leg.

"I'm not going anywhere. I can stay here all day and night if I want to".

When I left, David was on the phone with the police, and Liz was still sitting at table 20. A total mess surrounded her table-- the floor was soaking wet, and covered with ice cubes, tea bags and pieces of salmon. And Madonna was singing "Crazy for You" on the Muzak....