NEGATIVE GUESTS

While trying to book a table for tomorrow night (we’re going out for dinner) we were halted by the automated phone system when we tried to ‘Enter the number of guests, using your keypad…’

I pressed 3 very firmly. It bleeped into the system. Pause. Click. Pause…

‘Sorry,’ said a voice, ‘We can only accept a maximum of… zero… guests.’

Interesting system. I wondered what a ‘negative’ guest might look like: a minus diner. Presumably they pay you to eat there? But only as long as you start with dessert and coffee, and end your night with a sober starter.

And there’s no looking at the menu! No! They bring food out to you, and then make you guess what it was afterwards by pointing it out for them on the menu. If you get it right, you’re allowed your coats and they show you the door.

My phone won’t let me enter negative numbers. Otherwise I might have actually booked a table for minus 3 people just to see what happened. As it happens, all three of us currently exceed that maximum number of zero (even on our own), so unfortunately we won’t be getting paid to eat our food backwards tomorrow.

It’s this kind of thing that makes me think the world is much easier to navigate with real people at the end of the telephone. It’s the John Lewis rant all over again, I know, but I don’t care if it makes me sound old-fashioned! I want Charlie (let’s call him that) to flip open a big black book on a wooden lectern (somewhere near the restaurant door), wedge the chunky receiver between his head and his shoulder and tell me down a crackling phone line that ‘everything is going to be okay’ while he scribbles my name and my telephone number next to a big number 3 he’s pencilled in.

“Looking forward to seeing you,” he used to say with a welcome smile.

“Yes us too, thank you, Charlie,” we used to reply without any thought that this routine would ever be any different. Gosh I miss the Charlies.

Anyway, we’re taking Sammy’s aunt out for dinner tomorrow and I’m hoping it will not be a negative experience, even if we have to turn up on the door minus a reservation. I’m pretty sure even the robots don’t much like the idea of a minus 5 star review.