Ugly Girls in Montreal

Very recently, we dined at one of my favourite restaurants in Montreal. On St-Laurent, close to Sherbrooke, this place is rather small, but packs in quite a group, and is turned into a dance club much later in the evenings.

I was wearing a new black chiffon dress with a relatively low and square décolleté, returning to our table from the washroom. Heading towards me was one of the female wait staff carrying a full tray of drinks (it looked as though she had taken it to the wrong table).

Immediately in front of the waitress (to her left & my right) was another woman (clientele) who was wearing fake breasts and one of those tops that make me laugh (the ones that have no material in either the back or all the way down the front, until the woman’s belly button; essentially, the top looks as though it’s made of two strips to cover breasts and a band to hold it around the waist). Women such as this tend to live la vida loca and so they’re usually fun and interesting to watch, but deadly to chat with.

On this evening, however, this woman was both hideous to watch and be yelled at by…

Let’s situate ourselves once more: I am walking toward the waitress, who is headed towards me. In between us, to my right and to the left of the waitresses is The Woman, standing and chatting to people at a table.

The waitress reached The Woman moments before I did; I slowed down to let the waitress pass. As I did this, The Woman turned toward the waitress and started moving at high velocity.

Crashing into the waitress and her full tray of drinks, The Woman did some intricate dance move to ensure that I too was covered in drinks. I was soaked from the collarbone down, the waitress had drinks on her face and a little on her top, and The Woman had some drinks on the front of her top, but mostly on her left arm. There was no one seated to the left of The Woman and I or else they would have been covered in what was left of the drinks.

It took me a moment to realise what had occurred and why I was suddenly a wee bit chilly.

And then I started to laugh because it was a ridiculously funny situation.

Until The Woman started yelling at the waitress.

I was helping the waitress pick up some of the broken glass and so I didn’t hear everything, but did catch: “YOU F****** IDIOT!” and “WHAT KIND OF F***** WAITRESS ARE YOU?” and “YOU’VE RUINED MY OUTFIT!”

The waitress was in near hysterics because of the screaming banshee; completely discombobulated, she was at a loss, trying to pick up glass and wipe down Breasts, letting out a flow of “I’m so sorry”s.

Now. Women like Breasts – to me, anyway – give The Sisterhood a very bad reputation. Very Bad. And I have a problem: I can’t keep my mouth shut, most especially not if I feel as though someone is being abused or oppressed or generally treated as an inferior human being.

Breasts was doing just that to the waitress. Had it in fact been the waitress’ fault, Breasts would still not have been justified in her behaviour.

And so. I turned to Breasts and calmly said: I don’t think you should speak to her that way; she’s trying to apologise. To which Breasts retaliated with: F*** YOU.

I had two choices: I could either ignore her or engage the F*** YOU and deal with her on her level. It wasn’t a hard decision, and by this point, her two girlfriends had come over, as had the manager.

I ignored the comment (although I must have been smiling because I heard: WHAT ARE YOU SMILING AT?), and turned to the waitress who had begun to cry. I tried to talk her down. I mean, really, it was such a non issue that the drinks were spilled. She was apologising to me about my dress but I couldn’t have cared less. Dress = material = cloth = who cares?

We were pulled out of our little chat because Breasts had begun yelling at both the manager and her two girlfriends, ‘explaining’ how the waitress had spilled all of the drinks on her.

The girlfriends sucked their cheeks in in horror, and the manager apologised profusely for his “new staff”. Breasts kept yelling and wiping at the space between her fake rack.

Before the manager could say anything, I added my two cents: Your waitress didn’t spill anything on her; she smashed into the waitress. Turning to Breasts, I added: You're rude and you need to apologise.

Right after an “I DID NOT”, I got another "F*** YOU", which was the last straw. I don't know why I said it, but I felt obligated. I said: No thanks, I don't like the texture of fake breasts.

It should come as no surprise that she launched into a full-out verbal assault (at a much higher pitch) that I didn't take note of because I turned back to the waitress. Before I knew what was happening, two of the men seated at the table with whom she had previously been chatting, had confirmed to the manager that it was Breasts who'd crashed into the waitress, and not the other way around. Boys rock!

They got the F*** YOUs at this point.

The manager offered to pay for our dry cleaning, which I declined, and to which Breasts railed: IT HAS TO BE HAND WASHED.

The top was metallic, and so where she got “hand washed” is beyond me.

In a huff, Breasts declared that she had to go home and change out of her “RUINED TOP” and how she would “NEVER” come back to (insert name of restaurant) where there was “SUCH POOR F****** SERVICE”.

As she yelled randomly that they wanted their orders cancelled, her girlfriends grabbed jackets and proceeded to storm out. The restaurant was left quiet for a tense 15 seconds, until the first giggle broke out.

The manager, the waitress and I stood staring at one another, with the waitress shaking and wiping at her eyes. The manager looked at a complete loss and so…

I took the waitress into the washroom and helped her get cleaned up, made sure she stopped crying. I also had to wipe down my collarbone and surrounding area because the drinks had dried and I was sticky. I gave her a little pep talk and told her that it wasn’t her fault, and even if it were her fault, no one deserves to be yelled at in that manner. And that one day, she probably would spill a tray of drinks on someone, and it really doesn’t matter.

The rest of the evening was smooth sailing and the manager & I had a brief talk; I wanted to make certain the waitress didn’t get stuck paying for the spilled drinks, or wouldn’t be reprimanded for something she didn’t do.

When it was time to leave, I realised how much nicer the place had become without Breasts or the likes of women she represents. For such a pretty girl, she really is ugly.