By Georgia Grellier
Welcome back to Story Time with Georgia, where I relay various stories from members of the CC community, and also sometimes just me. Email me if you have a story and I will maybe consider making you famous.
Who: ANONYMOUS SENIOR YET AGAIN
When: Fall semester, 2018
What:
When this anonymous senior embarked on a three-week trip to Greece during a semester abroad in the fall of 2018, they were excited to experience a new country and do a little more class bonding. They were touring various towns around the country, and have arrived at a new one and checked into the hotel when their professors told them that they would be having a class dinner. The professors gave them the name of the restaurant and let them know what time to meet, and then everyone did their own thing for the afternoon. “It was a pretty small town,” the senior said.
One student “was a self-described foodie and really interested in that,” so they decided to go to the restaurant early and check out the menu. Not only were they a “foodie,” but “pretty outgoing as well,” so naturally, this student ended up making friends with the owner of the restaurant and the people working there. Eventually, the restaurant people gave them a tour of the kitchen, and the restaurant and the student — simply making conversation — told them about their 10-13 person reservation for dinner that night and that they were excited about the menu.
Later, the class was walking over to the restaurant together, and as they approached it saw the employees the student had met earlier in the day, who were “pointing to a beautiful table outside they prepared for all of us to come eat.” When their professors noticed the interaction between the student and the restaurant staff, though, they started frantically doing that little hand thing that means “don’t do that.” “Our professors were like ‘oh my god,’” anonymous said.
They kept walking past the restaurant, because, as it turned out, they were eating at a restaurant next door with the exact same name. “It took us a while to figure out why they’d been trying to talk to the other student, and it was weird too because they both had large outdoor seating areas.” As the dinner unfolded within direct view of the other restaurant, it slowly became clear among the class that during the foodie student’s visit to the other restaurant, they had inadvertently made a reservation for 10-13 people, which they then had to awkwardly walk by while the foodie student’s new friends at the other place were very much expecting them.
In this anonymous senior’s own words, this story can best be described as “kind of a general shit-show.” To be honest I can’t really handle this much secondhand cringe in the middle of the week, but here I am, writing this column anyway.
Takeaway: Okay if you use “foodie” as a personality trait this is what you deserve. I’m not sorry.