GRANOLAGATE

Honestly, sometimes I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I wish people would have enough common sense, think outside the box once in a while, and really think about whether or not rules or policies actually make sense. For the past eight days, Andy and I have been eating breakfast at a Western-themed resort restaurant. We’ve gotten to know “Clementine,” our server, very well. And she’s gotten to know us very well, too.

She knows Andy orders pancakes, sausage, and fruit. And she knows I order a plate of fresh pineapple with dry low-fat granola. A couple of days ago, she asked me how the granola was? I told her that it was really good and that I ate it often back home in Florida. She told me she’d try it, but the best granola she ever had was her grandmother’s homemade granola. When she described the granola, it sounded really good. I asked her if she could bring me in a sample, and she happily agreed.

The next day, Clementine forgot the granola and felt horrible about it. I told her not to worry; she promised she’d not forget it again. So this morning I anticipated tasting the yummy granola. Clementine greeted us not with a happy smile, but with a face wretched in disappointment. “You’re gonna kill me, but I didn’t forget it,“ she said. She told me that she indeed brought in her grandma’s granola for me, but her manager wouldn’t let her give it to me. I listened incredulously to the rest of the story. It seemed her manager deemed the granola as a health code violation because hotel management couldn’t guarantee the quality of it and that the hotel would be liable if I got sick. Plus, if other guests saw I got the granola, they might want some too and that wouldn’t be fair to them.

I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe this manager would not let Clementine give me the granola. I told Clementine to go get her manager, and I would try to see if I could talk some sense into her. A few minutes later “Miss Manager” showed up. “Can I help you?” She knew what I wanted, but I had to explain the whole story to her anyway. I explained to her that I knew all about health code rules having owned my own restaurant. I told her I’d be happy to sign a liability waiver for the hotel and for the health department, and that I really couldn’t see the other guests getting upset over a little granola.

Wow, she told me she’d never come across anything like this, and that she’d have to call her Vice President. I’m thinking, Vice President? You have to call your VP over a little granola? You can’t make a common sense decision yourself? Good grief. Our food arrived and I ate my low-fat granola. Miss Manager showed up while we were halfway through, and apologized to me for not allowing me to have the granola. It seemed the VP agreed with her on the hotel liability and health code violations, and that my signing a waiver wouldn’t truly eliminate the hotel liability. What???

And then things got stranger. Another server showed up and brought me the check. I asked where Clementine was and the new girl said, “she was busy in the back somewhere.” What a line of BS. We waited around for another 15 minutes, but no sign of Clementine anywhere. Jeez, I wondered if this stupid granola got the girl fired? I honestly don’t know at the moment, but I’m going to find out. Shit like this irks me to no end. Miss Manager has no common sense to let a simple thing like this go, then she can’t make a decision on her own, and now she fires the employee over granola? I hope for her sake she didn’t fire Clementine because I’m about to make her life really miserable if she did. More to come.