[TexasJack]

My old boss, John, was hard of hearing, and so sometimes he talked pretty loud but thought he was talking quietly. Some pipeline folks were in town for training or something and John took a group of us out for dinner in downtown Houston. We hadn't been to this particular restaurant in a while, but they had a pretty good chicken fried steak. The waitress came around to take drink orders and in the course of talking to her, John said he didn't remember seeing her there and was she new. No, she replied, I've been here for a couple of years and I've waited on you many times. John told her to be sure to bring him a glass for his beer. She walked away and John said (too loudly), Boy, I didn't recognize her. She put on a lot of weight.

I saw the girl's face turn purple. She came back in a few minutes with bottles of beer and glasses, but she slammed down the beer bottle in front of John with no glass. John asked, "Hey, where's my glass?" The waitress replied, "I ground it up and put it in your beer bottle."

Several apologies and a nice tip smoothed over the situation.

On another occasion, we had a new waitress. She had to ask John several times for his drink order because she didn't hear him. He said, "I'm sorry. Guess I'm slow. Gin and tonic." What she heard was "Sloe Gin & Tonic." and she brought out this strange drink. He tried to pretend it would be ok, just so not to embarass her, but he couldn't choke it down.