No Salad For You!

No Salad For You!

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When travelling the world, nothing makes you feel more at home, than to visit food chains that come straight from your hometown. I remember the time I drove 8 hours in Pakistan from Islamabad to Karachi just to visit McDonald's—I just had to have a big mac. Then one time in UAE, I drove two hours to get a burrito at Taco Bell in Dubai. It was these little things that kept me connected to home (America) during my domestic exile. So as often as I could, I would go to the Pizza Hut restaurant in Al Ain. It was one of my favorite hangouts, until one day, I bumped heads with the manager.

It was one of our regular mother and daughter lunch dates, and we decided that we were in the mood for pizza; so we went over to our neighborhood Pizza Hut. It was still early in the day, so the place was pretty empty. We chose our seat, ordered our pizza and headed to the salad bar. So far everything was normal.

Once our pizza came, our focus was diverted from our salad plates and onto our large cheese and pineapple delight. We chatted the hour away, enjoying the atmosphere. Soon, we decided it was time to leave.

“May I have a carry-out tub for my salad please?”

“No madam. I am sorry, I cannot,” she said as politely as possible.

“What do you mean?” I was shocked.

“You are not allowed to take the salad out of the restaurant,” she tried to explain.

“What? That’s ridiculous.” I was so stunned that I thought maybe English was not her first language and that I should start the whole conversation over again. “Please bring me a carryout tub for my salad.” 

“No madam I cannot.”

“Again no? Why not?”

“Like I said, you are not allowed to take the salad out of the restaurant.”

After two more rounds of the same discussing, I became fed up with my waitress. I stood up and said, “I’d like to speak to the manager please.”

Gesturing to follow her, she said, “Yes ma’am, this way.” She led me to the register and went into the kitchen to get him.

I stood patiently at the counter. This is just ridiculous. Suddenly, a sweaty, balding, pudgy Middle-Eastern man with a noticeably long pinky nail, came out from the kitchen.

“Yes madam,” he said with really no expression on his face. Obviously the waitress has filled him in.

“I would like a carry out tub for my salad, and my waitress is refusing to give me one. She says that I cannot have one, and I want to know why.”

“She is correct ma’am. You cannot take out your salad. You have already eaten some of it. So you cannot take it with you. It is against our rules.”

“What rules?”

“Pizza Hut’s rules.”

“No, it’s not,” I argued. “I’m from America and I’ve been eating at Pizza Hut all of my life. I am allowed to take my pizza home.”

“Yes, the pizza; just not the salad,” he countered.

“What the hell?” I abruptly barked out with no remorse. The customers were now starting looking over at us. I began flapping my hands about. “That doesn’t even make sense. Why can I take the pizza and not the salad?!”

“Because you touched it while you are in the restaurant.”

“Okay, wait. So what you are saying is, that I cannot take the salad home with me because I have already touched it while I was inside the restaurant?”

“That is correct.”

“But you touched the salad in the kitchen; so you can touch my salad. But I can’t touch my own salad?”

“Correct.”

“That doesn’t even make sense! Are you hearing what you are saying?!” I argued. Just then a man walked in to the restaurant to pick up his order: pizza and salad. I glared at the manager and continued my argument. “So! This man can take his salad home, because he has not touched it yet. But I cannot because I sat at my table like a good customer, and took a bloody fork and ate a piece of it? He can take his, but I can’t take mine?”

“You could have done something to your salad.”

“What?! I could have done something to my own salad? Are you serious? You could have done something to my salad. Everyone in the kitchen could have done something to my salad.”

Again he starts his argument. “It is against our policy to let a customer take the salad out of the restaurant once they have eaten from it.”

“Oh my God! Where is this ridiculous policy written down?! I want to see it.”

“You want to see it?”

“Yes, I want to see it and to read it. Right now. Go get it. If it’s in your company’s policies, then they’re public and I have a right to read them. I’m an English teacher. I’ll read it myself and see if you understand it correctly or not.”

Suddenly the man reaches under the counter and pulls up a small aluminum tub and throws it on the counter at me. “Oh here! Just take your salad and go!”

“Thank you! I will. That’s all I wanted in the first place.”

Then as I turn to go, he said, “If you get sick, it is not our problem!”

Ignoring his final comment, I took my salad and stormed out of the restaurant. 

(An excerpt from Legally Blonde in UAE. Available for free from all outlets and www.marshamarie.com.)