He snapped his fingers at the tuxedoed figure gliding by. "Two martinis, dry. With olives," he barked.
The snappee paused in mid-stride. He moonwalked the six feet back to the snapper's table, then did an elaborate pirouette to face him. "Did you snap at me?"
The snapper was also dressed in a tux. He was in his mid-60s, balding but still clinging to a horseshoe of short-cropped white hair, and a matching, closely trimmed, white beard. His wife was dressed in a sequined gown of purple and blue, with silver highlights. While not exactly dripping with pearls, she was adorned with a fair amount of jewelry. She was neither gorgeous nor ugly, and an honest man would have to say that she was aging well.
The snappee was much younger, about 30 or 35, rather on the slim side but not scrawny. He was wearing an annoyed look, as you would expect from someone who had just been snapped at.
"Yes, I did," said the older man. "We've been sitting here for a half hour already. Now get us our drinks. Two martinis, dry, with olives."
The young man sighed deeply. He looked left towards the maître d', then right towards the kitchen doors.
"First of all, don't you ever snap at me. I'm not a dog or a trained seal. In fact, because you snapped at me, I'm going to walk away from your table — I'm sorry, ma'am," he said, with a nod to the woman, before turning back to her companion, "— and ignore you for the rest of the night, you entitled snob."
The older man started to get angry and rise from his seat. "You can't talk to me like that! I make more money—"
But the younger man put his hand in the old man's face to stop him. "Yeah, I know," he said, "You make more money in a day than I do in a year. Hell, the way you tip waiters, it's probably more like ten years."
"Second," he continued, "do you see that pretty lady in the red dress, the one that looks like Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings?" He gestured to a woman wearing a red strapless gown, sitting at a table about 15 feet away, who did in fact resemble the Australian actress Miranda Otto. "That's my date. I'm not a waiter. I don't work here, you stupid, braying jackass."
The older man again started to stand up, and this time he was stopped with just an index finger. "Sit down! Third, I just got back from the restroom, and you weren't even here when I went in. You haven't been here for 30 minutes. You haven't even been here for five minutes. Not only are you a snob and a jackass, you're a liar and a bully. You oughta just get up and leave now, because you've set yourself up for a night of terrible service."
The young man spun on his heel and glided back to his table.
