You would think that, by now, people might have caught on to the incontrovertible fact that upsetting me leads to these articles. Perhaps that fails at the illiterate level. Who knows.
Anyway: here's the story
Saturday 9th February 2002. With a few hours to kill before anything remotely important happens to us, Hunter, Greenback and I hit the usual place--the Village Inn at 9050 East Hampden in Denver.
Of course, Village Inn in general are starting to get on my bad side. It was one thing when Perkins went nonsmoking on Sundays--the day after the sabbath; Village Inn went one better: at six in the morning on Saturdays, Sundays, and whatever arbitrarily called hollidays [which, oddly, fails to include Hallowe'en], they rush over and abscond with all the ashrays...although not before explaining their theocratic policy with the dogmatic tone people use to explain to a three-year-old why Uncle Lenny is no longer around after being mowed down by a large truck outside the BowlARama last week.
While this sounds like a setup for an ad hominem, it's actually not. The idiocy we encountered ultimately had a lot to do with smoking and Village Inn policies.
We got there at about nine. Things were reasonably uneventful. To the degree that no one ever bothered to stop back with more coffee, or to confirm whether we were happy enough with drinks; apparently you have to phone ahead to order food in some cases. Not that I'd expect that to help much.
Anyway: it got to be about eleven; we had a thing to go to; we did. We even mentioned that to the manager--that we'd be gone for an hour or two, and would likely be back after midnight...likely enough that we even suggested adding the potential extra two coffees and soda to the current bill to save us from writing a second cheque later that night. The manager, flabbergasted by the scenario, instead insisted that we pay for the two coffees we'd just finished. So we did. Then we left.
We went off and did what we had to do. That took us until about one in the morning. Then, as predicted, we returned to Village Inn.
'You again,' the manager noted, presumably sarcastically, 'Are you going to eat anything?'
Now...in most cases, the leading question at this point is how many or smoking or non; the only time in history I've been asked eating or non was, interestingly, at a different Village Inn by a different Graveyard manager. That's a long story on its own; I'll get back to the current anecdote instead.
Generally unprepared for the question, I shrugged. 'Could be,' I said, 'It can't hurt to have menus, in any case.'
The manager nodded curtly and groped for a few menus; then he began to lead us into Darkest Smoking--a tiny table in the very back.
And that was odd. There are six booths in the smoking section. The three on the innermost side were occupied; the other three were empty and open.
'You mind if we grab a booth again?' I asked as the manager started setting menus on the matchbox-sized table in the back.
'If we had any open in Smoking,' he told me; 'But they're all taken.'
I blinked at him. 'Those three open booths are all taken?'
'They're not in Smoking,' he lied.
I can say with some authority that he lied about that. If only because we'd sat in each of those three booths during various visits to the restaurant. To that effect:
'Since when?' I asked.
'Since always. I've been here twenty years; those have never been in Smoking. Ever.'
'Interesting,' I told him, 'We've sat there several times; each of those times, it was pretty well Smoking.'
'You were seated there?'
'Yeah. And given ashtrays.'
'Did the manager know about it?'
I could, at this point, mention that the manager we were used to seeing wasn't actually there that night.
'Yeah. He's the one who seated us there.'
'Was that Brian?' the new manager asked, as though the condition of it being related at all to Brian would signal the loss of all hope.
'Did Brian recently shave his head?'
'Yup. That's Brian. And if he sat you there,' the new manager pointedly admonished, 'he's in a lot of trouble.'
Now I was wondering whether this guy was lying, joking, or just retarded. I sat down at the tablette along with Hunter and Greenback.
The new manager smirked and asked if we wanted anything to drink.
Two coffees and a Coke without ice.
He nodded again and went away to make that happen. Meanwhile, we pondered his reasons for suddenly moving the borders of the United Smokers of America on us.
Within a minute, Carly--our usual waitress--happened over. She asked what we wanted to drink.
We told her, and I asked her wehther she knew anything about the three booths suddenly being in Nonsmoking. She looked at me as though she hoped I was joking. I wasn't.
'That's not true,' she said, 'Did you want a booth?'
'If we can have one,' I told her, 'If you're not going to get in rouble for it.'
'I don't think I am,' she said, 'Everyone knows that's Smoking. Who told you it wasn't?'
In response, the manager returned, along with a different server who had our drinks for us. He sent Carly away.
We had our drinks now, and the second server wandered off again. The new manager began to leave; then Hunter caught him.
'Say,' she called, loudly enough for the Smoking Section to hear her; the manager turned back, pained expression on his face. 'If those three booths aren't in smoking anymore, are you planning to move the sign over there reading "No Smoking beyond This Point"?' The sign was on the wall beyond the three booths in question.
Instead of actually answering the question, the new manager told her--and us: 'The policy has been in effect as long as I've been here, which is twenty years; if you don't like the policy, you're free to call our complaint line and talk to them about it; my name's tony; they're going to agree with me over you.' He began to leave again.
'Say, Tony?' I called.
He turned back yet again; this time he made no effort to conceal his disappointment that we were still there.
'Mind if we get an ashtray?' I asked.
He exhaled melodramatically. 'Of course.' He disappeared toward the kitchen.
A moment later, the cook, of all people, came over and handed me an ashtray caked with soot; he returned instantly to the kitchen.
'So that's sanitary,' Greenback observed.
Carly returned. 'Wha'd he say?' she asked, regarding Tony
'That those booths aren't in Smoking, and we can tell the corporate 'droids all about it if we ever find out their number,' I told her.
'He's an idiot,' Carly assured me, 'That's Smoking. Wanna move?'
By chance, the closest of the three occupied booths was opening up.
'Yeah,' I said, 'But it doesn't have to be in the Neutral Zone there. The booth right behind you is clearing out; we can hop over there if you're okay with it.'
She glanced back and saw the empty, if messy table; she nodded at me with a conspiratorial grin. 'Okay,' she consented.
Carly cleared off the booth in question and returned to start moving our stuff for us. We got up, helped move things, and sat down in the booth.
Tony wandered by. He looked at us in our new booth and quickly looked away again.
We drank coffee and soda for a bit.
Interestingly, as more people began to come in and ask for Smoking, Tony went ahead and sat them at--you guessed it--the three booths wich are apparently only in Nonsmoking if we ask for them over the tiny table in the back which, also interestingly, was clean and open and ready for people who were instead being given these booths of dubious functionality.
Now...I'm sure that Tony here would never, ever do anything to discriminate against me, even if he didn't know I was a member of the press. Which leads me to wonder what in the living hell he was doing.
So does this....
Just after we moved to the booth which was clearly in Smoking regardless which other ones weren't, the table across the aisle containing a couple of black people erupted into accusations of racism. I'm still not clear what sort of racist activity they'd encountered, and I probably never will be; but their complaints escalated into demands to see the manager.
Tony.
Tony, faced with the accusation of racism, handled the situation with his usual aplomb: they could call the corporate complaint line and tell them that he was Tony, and they'd listen to Tony over anyone else.
The table--stunned--got up and left instead; Tony gave me a dangerous glance and walked away agian.
By two in the morning, the place had filled up. Smokers sat at every table in Smoking, as well as the three booths which Tony can't decide over from guest to guest. Also, we're out of coffee.
The server Tony had assigned to us was nowhere to be seen. Carly noticed we were out of coffee and got us some more.
Just afterward, Tony pulled her aside and castigated her for that. He didn't appear to have a reason, except that it wasn't her table.
At that point, it hit me: Carly knew about the issue over three booths. She knew that Tony had assured us that they were in Nonsmoking, and let people who weren't us sit there with ashtrays. That, along with a few calls on a copule of six-hundred-dollar StarTacs, a late-model high-end laptop, and a watch which probably cost more than his car--things he hadn't really noticed us with when we'd sat down in Levi's and leather jackest--suggested that, maybe--just maybe--he was beginning to fear that we might know people like lawyers, or something. And if we knew both lawyers and Carly, who knew the situation, things might not work so well for Tony the possibly racist, possibly discriminatory manager.
The next time Carly walked by, I stopped her long enough to give her one of my cards--EMail address, phone number, and so on. 'Just in case you get suddenly and mysteriously sacked,' I told her.
She gave me that look I'm always given when I predict things like that. Then she nodded and went away again. We weren't, after all her table.
It was nearly three in the morning.
A literal minute later, several dozen of our friends showed up. That wasn't much of a surprise; the lot of us hit this Village Inn every Saturday night after the film lets out. And this was no exception.
Except.
A coule of the tables' worth of people made it in before Tony noticed that they seemed to know me and that I seemed to know them. Then, oddly, the people who seemed to know everyone got turned away at the door.
No explanaion given, except the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone for Any Reason.
Andrew got that. He walked over to my booth to let me know that the group in general weren't welcome now that Brian had been replaced by this guy. I told him I was having trouble being surprised by that, and that there was a backstory to it which I would explain when I had more time. Of course, you just read the backstory.
Andrew got my point, and announced as only he seems able to--to the restaurant and half of South Denver at once: 'Bad news, Everyone; our regular manager seems to have been replaced by this nazi bastard whose fear of the Interestingly Dressed behoves us to retreat!'
And retreat we did. But not in time.
Carly walked past my booth one last time. She was crying. Andrew caught up to her to ask what was wrong.
What was wrong that she'd been sacked. Tony hadn't bothered with any detials, except that he reserved the Right to Terminate Any Employee for Any Reason.
That's not actually why she was crying, though; she was a little more upset that we were leaving as well.
We told her where we were likely to go instead--a different Village Inn which we--Hunter, Greenback and I--tend to hit on weeknights anyway. Presumably Tony's meagre influence over the anonymous Corporate Complaint Line didn't extend to other Village Inns, she could probably go over to this other, better one and plug righ back in again.
She agreed that she'd be far happier under those conditions. She still had my card, apparently against Tony's wishes: he'd asked her to give it to him after he'd sacked her; she'd enacted her Right to Refuse an Idiot's Request for Any Reason.
And that, as they say, is that.
For the moment.
Of course, I've bounced the account you've just read off of various restaurateurs, lawyers, and so on; they're all urging me to sue Tony here into extinction for everything from discrimination to wrongful discharge.
So: who knows. Maybe the next time I have a few hours to kill before I have to be somewhere, I'll go ahead and ruin this moron's life.

--Gremlin