Missives From Obscurity

Derka Derka Truffle Jihad

My war with Dilettante Chocolates is over.

Dilettante Chocolates on Broadway in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood is the dessert place to be, if you’re just trendy enough for a touch of pretentiousness and bohemian enough to temper the pretension with some class. When you enter the café, on your left are shelves of foil wrapped and boxed Dilettante Chocolates. To your right are tables draped in maroon tablecloths, surrounded by black chairs. In front of you, dividing the room, is the cash register and, on the right side of the cash register is the candy counter with the dessert case, displaying cakes, pies and fruit tarts, on the left. It was into this refined and hip atmosphere that my partner, Jim, and I, with a friend of Jim’s, entered on fine autumn day in 1998.

I don’t remember Jim’s friend’s name. I remember she regularly got very friendly with her herbs and she was a singer a the University of Washington. Let’s call her Charlotte. What the hell?

So, on a fine autumn day in 1998, Jim, Charlotte and I came into Dilettante Chocolate’s on Broadway and took a seat. The restaurant that day (I believe it was a Saturday) was packed. The single waiter in the place wheeled past our table and deposited menus like a B-52 bomber dropping relief supplies on war torn Germany. He was clearly overwhelmed and as I watched him negotiate the tables and the customers, I determined to tip him well and also to treat him with all due sensitivity. Jim, Charlotte and I chatted and considered our options amongst the delectable contents of the dessert case. The waiter… now, let’s see, what was his name? I don’t remember. Let’s call him… Quentin. Quentin the waiter, all huffing and sighing, made his way to our table and said he was ready to take our order. Jim wasn’t actually at the table, still peering in at the promises of creamy decadence in the dessert case, and Charlotte was still considering her menu. When Quentin asked “Are you ready?” I stammered that one of us wasn’t present as I tried to get Jim’s attention. Charlotte responded with a half-articulated “I’m not quite” or “Not just yet” or maybe it was “I don’t see any marijuana brownies” when Quentin snapped “Fine!” and ejected himself from our presence.

That was my first inclination that Quentin was, in fact, one of those prissy, snappy little food service fags.

Jim rejoined us at the table. We chatted. We drank our waters. We discussed what we were going to order. We watched Quentin swish and dart between tables, seating people, taking orders, and bussing tables. Where was this man’s help? Where were the other waiters? We tried to get his attention and he lawn-darted a “I’ll be right with you” our way. I think, perhaps, I might not have become annoyed but for the fact that time was of some essence. I was supposed to be at work later that afternoon. And then I noticed that the tables around us were emptying and being replaced by new customers. And then I noticed that Quentin sat two gentlemen down at the next table and took their order while we continued to wait (by then ten minutes after his lobbed promise to attend to us directly) for him to return to take our order. It was then, as Quentin finished taking our neighbors’ orders, that Jim caught his attention and said “We’re ready to order.” To which Quentin responded tartly “I can’t help you now.”

To which I responded, as he whisked away and after a moment of stunned silence shared between Jim, Charlotte and I, “Oh no she didn’t!" I stood up and followed Ms. Thang across the room.

Now, mind you, at this point in the story, I am perfectly calm. All I want is my lemon coconut cake with a hot chocolate! Clearly some misunderstanding had taken place, or Quentin the quickly-losing-his-snippy-waiter-fag-charm was just overworked. I am willing to work through this. I say to Quentin, when I catch up to him, “Excuse me, we’re ready to order.” To which our Quentin responded “I can’t help you.”

I think I may actually have cocked my head. This simply did not compute.

“Why not?”

“You’re not at my table.”

I was not, until then, aware that you could gain, verbally, the effect of snapping your fingers dismissively. Plus, hello!, “We’re not at your table?” I asked. “But you were going to wait on us earlier.”

“The person who waits your table didn’t come in today. I can’t help you.”

At this point, a gentle ripple rolled across the serene surface of my calm. Barely a ripple. Almost… merely… a shimmer. Still… a disturbance. So I said “I don’t see how that’s our problem. We’ve been here for over half an hour and I’ve watched you wait on every other table but us. You’re even serving customers who came in after we did. So why have you suddenly decided you can’t serve us?”

“I think it’s time we parted ways, sir.”

In spite of any and all pacifist tendencies and aspirations I may have, there really are times when it would be wholly satisfying to slap a silly waiter bitch, pop him in the gob with a good slug of your fist and kick him repeatedly in his balls. But, because at this point in the story, I am still calm, I did none of those things.

“Parted ways???”

I think I even managed to vocalize the multiple question marks.

“Why? All we want is some desserts and a drinks. And you’re being belligerent.”

“It’s time for you to leave.”

Wobble that head any more, Quentin, and it’ll be easier to knock your faggot block off. Still… if by this point I’m not screaming at a motherfucker that he is, in fact, a motherfucker; if, only in retrospect, do I even consider that this guy is a complete asshole, that even in the midst of the conversation I didn’t even think to think of any epithets, insults or abuses, then I consider myself to have still been calm. Oh, I’m sure ripples were disturbing my calm all over, shore to shore, but mostly, I couldn’t believe I was being thrown out of a restaurant for… expecting the waiter do wait on us, for wanting lemon coconut cake and a hot chocolate, for calmly, rationally (hey, I was as surprised about that as anyone!) trying to work this out with a fellow swish.

“Why?” I demanded of Quentin. “What have I or my friends done to warrant being thrown out?”

“It’s time for you to leave.”

“Okay,” I conceded with a shrug. “But I’d like your name, the name of your manager and how I can reach him or her.”

“I’ve been working here a long time.”

Okay. Still gonna complain.

Quentin wrote down the necessary information and Jim, Charlotte and I left. That same evening, Jim and I both wrote letters complaining of the treatment we’d received. In my letter, I suggested that amends might be made with a gift certificate for each of us in the amount of $5. My lemon coconut cake alone would’ve cost that. I didn’t think it an extraordinary request. At the very least, Jim and I hoped to receive a written or telephoned apology. We never heard anything.

So my war with Dilettante Chocolates was on. I told everyone I knew in Seattle the story. I even rallied some friends to my cause and they swore to join our boycott. I never stepped foot inside that café or their stores ever again. I never purchased their chocolate. I became an even more avid fan of Godiva Chocolates. By God, that would show Dilettante’s!

They didn’t close down for lack of business. They remained popular as ever on Broadway. I even continued to see Quentin waiting tables inside. He wasn’t fired. Nor, probably, I suspect, even reprimanded. I wondered how often he gave the manager a blow job. Or were they related somehow? The years went by. I moved to Los Angeles. I re-vilified Dilettante’s every time I saw their products when I visited Portland or Seattle. My hate burned so cold.

But then I experienced living in Los Angeles. I experienced being hit by cars twice while riding my bike. I experienced working for Samuel French and Bed Bath and Beyond. I experienced the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governorship and George W. Bush to the presidency… twice. And I suppose that this led me to conclude that there are worse things in the world than, oh, say, being thrown out of a café because some waiter targeted my group as his venue for venting his frustration over a coworker’s irresponsibility, leaving him working a Saturday afternoon rush alone. There are worse things in the world so much so that they landed me in therapy, where I sorted out some of my values, feelings, and preconceptions and came out the other end in Seattle, Washington, ready to embrace a more vibrant, compassionate and positive outlook on life. Thus, on Wednesday, August 2^nd, my war with Dilettante Chocolates came to an end.

After enjoying an evening improv performance at Freehold Theater with my friend and roommate, Kat, we wandered through Capitol Hill and along Broadway, talking of improv. We laughed about the improv performance and the guy we passed on the street who was telling his friend about his retarded turtle who had long toenails, so he named the turtle Freddy Krueger. The night was just rife with possibility and humor, so when Kat suggested stopping in at Dilettante’s, I felt an initial twinge of the old grudge, but then I thought “Wait a minute.”

In Los Angeles, at the end of my various types of therapy, I decided to try new things and to let my fears or prejudgments stand in the way of living a fulfilling life. Here I was, about to deny myself and a friend of a continued happy evening because of an eight year grudge over some prissy fag’s bad behavior! It was time to unclench.

So unclench I did and joined Kat at Dilettante’s for a wonderful evening of discussion. Quentin has been replaced by demure, gracious Asian women who are efficiently attentive to customers. I ordered a savory black forest ham and cheese sandwich on rustic bread, and followed it with a slice of lemon coconut cake and a hot chocolate.

posted by Joe Lopez @ 11:39 AM