Ear Splitting Sharpies

If you’re been to a Hooters in the last – oh – forever, you’re probably familiar with the practice of your Hooters Girl writing her name on a napkin as she’s introducing herself to your table.  Not only is this congruent with the informal, personal feel of Hooters, but it also is a sign to us as servers that the table has been taken care of; it’s a perfectly simple solution.

Yesterday, I was introducing myself as normal and uncapped my Sharpie to jot down my name.  It was business as usual.  No sooner had I put marker to napkin was I suddenly being told to stop.  Yes, a customer was asking me to stop writing my name down.  Actually, to be more accurate I was being yelled at.

Well that explains it.  CREDIT.

“OH MY GOD, DO NOT DO THAT,” he bellowed as he swiftly covered his ears.  This was not a normal reaction.  It stopped me cold.  There I was staring at a middle-aged man forcibly covered his ears.  Surprised doesn’t begin to cover it.

And that’s about the way we stood for a good thirty seconds, because he also had his eyes closed.  There he was doing the “hear no evil, see no evil” as I awkwardly stood there unsure what the eff to do about it.  I was beyond confused.

“Are you done doing that yet?”

I had been done for nearly a minute with half my name scrawled across the napkin as he cautiously opened his eyes.  As he realized I’d stopped long before, I did the only thing I could think of and asked what he’d care to drink as if I hadn’t gotten screamed at for writing my name.  While I took the order I casually grabbed the napkin and crumpled it in my hands hoping that hiding the evidence might lessen my embarrassment.  I was just going to pretend it never happened.

As I poured his beer, my manager came over to ask what happened to cause such uproar.  It was pretty obvious by her blank reaction that the whole thing really was as ridiculous as it sounded.  We both agreed I was probably one of the few people in the world who have been screamed at for writing on a napkin.  I call that talent.

Beer and food were dropped off and consumed, and while the rest of the meal went fine, I was marginally relieved to cash the gentleman out.  It was as I was doing so that he took the time to casually apologize and rattle of some excuse about the sound reminding him of sand.  Yes, sand. 

Naturally this led me to test the combination of Sharpie and napkin and my findings produced little to no noise that you could hear across a table – and most certainly no sound that had anything to do with sand.  Don’t worry; I was as confused as you probably are.

Hey, at least he apologized!