Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Heimlich?

There is a restaurant in our town that we frequent fairly often. We go there because the food is cheap, but good, and they have craft beers.

The down side is that the wait staff does not seem to have a clue about serving food. They are very nice, but all they seem to know is standing behind a bar and uncapping Heinekens for people sitting at the bar.

Couple that with the fact that the owner seems to think that the bar is running itself nicely enough without him ever seeming to be there any more. And what you get is really lousy service.

Wednesday nights you get a small order of cheese with a select few beers, of which of course we always partake. And pretty much every time, the cheese comes out 15 minutes after we order our beers, along with our meals. Not exactly when we'd prefer to have it.

Then there is the matter of our never being offered glassware of any kind with our beers. I do not understand how you could own a bar and offer up all sorts of craft beers and seemingly not have a clue that good beer is intended to be drunk from a glass. Not to mention, its flavor comes out more when it's poured into a glass and then drunk. Would you want to drink wine out of its bottle? No. Of course not. Anyway, that's a different rant for a different day.

What happened tonight is that I started coughing as I do sometimes, where I cough really hard and then it sounds like I'm about to vomit. In the past few years this has only happened a few times, where I am coughing with such force that I then, I guess, start to hyperventilate? It's the only thing I can figure. At first I signalled to Jeff that I was fine. Because I was coughing after all, and that means air is coming in.

And then I couldn't cough any more and I think I got scared. I stood up and mouthed "Heimlich!" and he tried to do it, but he didn't do it hard enough. He said afterward that he was afraid he'd hurt me. Awww.

The waitress sauntered over from behind the bar, smiling. I didn't see any of that, but it royally pissed Jeff off. "Help!" he said, "she's fucking choking here!" The waitress clearly had no idea what to do and offered to call 911. Jeff yelled, "doesn't anyone know the Heimlich?!" No one stood up.

And then, all I can say is, it passed. I could breathe again, just like that. I was mortally embarressed and had lost my appetite. I think I was just hyperventilating, but it was scary. The same thing happened at work a few years ago and at least then a group of people gathered around and offered any help they could.

Afterward, the waitress offered me a glass of water with no ice. "This should help," she said. Thanks. My water glass was empty.

I feel bad bad-mouthing this place and that is why I'm not naming it by name. Because it's a good restaurant/bar to have in our town. It just pisses us off almost every time we go there, despite its good food and good beer.

We made a vow to make the effort to try more restaurants and stop defaulting to the places close to home. We paid a bundle on a mortgage to live right outside of Manhattan for a reason, dammit.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

That is really scary. I'm sure you've been to the doctor about that already, but perhaps you should go again? It's worrisome. :(

Unknown said...

I did, but of course whatever was wrong was inconclusive, or whatever. Maybe I'm just really phlegmy?