My sister, at 5, was smarter than I knew

The background for my upcoming bitch session... We were toolin' down 183 in 1980ish in an exceptionally large white station wagon with the classic wood paneling. My sister is trying to read words here and there, on street signs and on business marquees.
.... "Daddy, what does P-O-H-I spell?"
Dad thinks and then promptly hollers out to the rest of the car's amusement "Pooooie". R had spelled the IHOP restaurant sign backwards and it forever became known as POHI in our family. Little did I know that this would hold more truth as to how I should feel about the establishment in the years to come.

I am not sure who it is out there that is in charge of coming up with ridiculous Holidays but he must not be paid well. Examples in February are Bake For Family Fun month, National Time Management month and National Pet Dental Health month. I'm thinking upon seeing this list, are there people out there that actually celebrate these holidays?? And if so, what looney-bin lock-up do they reside in today? I found it all so humorous. That is, until I heard one in particular. February 20th is National Pancake Day AND IHOP was giving away free short stacks all day. Perfect! I was taking the kids to a park on the opposite side of the nearest IHOP at 3:30 and then we had to be at soccer practice by 6:30. Doing the math, not nearly enough time to play, get home and eat dinner and back out to the gym. We'll just stop off after the park and have free pancakes I'm thinking. THIS is where someone should have walked up and popped me upside the head. I want to hunt down the little man who brainstormed these Holidays and beat him to a pulp.

Starts out well enough. I pick up my friend's daughter and head out to meet our playgroup. She was going to meet up with us at the IHOP afterwards and we would all head over to soccer. As we are leaving the park, I call her and she is still home but is walking out the door. I figure with traffic, we needed to kill time until she got there since I was just around the corner. I stop and get gas. I putter over to the restaurant and take us all into the restroom to wash the park we took with us off before eating. Then we head to the front and tell the manager "7 total. 3 adults, 2 kids, and to toddlers in highchairs". She looks awfully confused and says she'll go set it up. Can we please wait. In this time, two other waitstaff ask me if I've been helped. People keep getting taken back to tables. We are still waiting. Then my friend shows. We are waiting. Then her husband shows. Waiting. The waitstaff is walking back and forth, taking care of the half empty restaurant and making a big effort to NOT look at us glaring at them from the front. Finally *25 minutes* after I had first spoken to the manager, we just seat ourselves. My friend's husband has to find us high chairs. More waiting. We had less than an hour at this point to order, eat and get to the gym. Finally after 10 minutes, a little pre-pubescent kid waltzed up and asked if anyone had taken our drink order. No. Ok, he'll take it but he says someone stole his papers (?) and he would be right back. A good 5 minutes later, he comes back to get our drink order. 10 minutes later, drinks arrive. Wow! That works out to a little over a minute per drink pour. I had time to work this out you see. He drops our drinks at the table and as he walks away I called to him that we were in a hurry and would like to go ahead and turn in our food order. He looked at me and said bluntly "I don't take orders" and walked off! The table next to us leans over and said "He took OUR order!" Seriously?? Now we are getting ultra annoyed. Another 5 minutes and no one comes. My friend's husband gets up and goes to the front to get us menus. Again, the table next to us leans over and says "We had to get our own menus too and for the record, the silverwear is in a basket to the right of the counter up front". Great. This is going nowhere fast. A waitress walks past us (for the umpteenth time) and says "Sorry, didn't know you were here. (flips her hair) No one told me this table was sat". Ummm, you've taken the order of AND served the table on the other side of us Since we've been seated!! Do you drive on the streets with that keen sense of awareness? Then she says she'll be right back! Fabulous, more waiting. The manager at this point walks by and we stop her. She says she'll take our order but that she doesn't have a pen. My friend says under her breath that she might do best to go find the non-order taking waiter as they would make a great team. Upon her return we told her what we would like. We ask how many sausages come to an order. We need to know since we are splitting them up for all the kids. The woman doesn't know. The woman doesn't even ask anyone or go to find out. She's standing there staring at us. Isn't the manager supposed to know the menu of her store? Apparently she had no desire to learn either because she just stood there. Fine, 3 orders. Off she went and yes, we did have to fetch our own silver. We ate. We surprisingly received our check without request. Guess getting paid takes precedence over customer satisfaction.

Now I have worked as a waitress. Both my friend and her husband had waited tables in their lives. And obviously Crit has told story after restaurant story of his 10+ year restaurant history. I know the importance of a tip believe me! Leaving 20-25% tip is normal for me and even to leave 15% for bad waiters. This was THE most ridiculous experience I have ever had in my life. For the first time ever, I (and my friend) walked out of a restaurant leaving absolutely nothing. Why oh why didn't I remember the POHI story before I went in and take it as some sort of foreshadowing? What a very very smart little girl.