Recently, I've switched up my schedule at work. The long and short of it is that I've been working a longer day, because it's a better fit for the Mild Wife and I. We have some other activities at home and outside of work, so I want to make sure that we have time to do them.
However, because I leave the office a bit later in the afternoon, that means that I will be leaving around the same time that the mid-afternoon traffic gets really bad. Even with the carpool lane, sitting in that traffic is not fun at all. So, the Mild Wife and I decided that I would take the bus to and from work. The idea is that neither of us should have to deal with that traffic. Sure, it means that I have less flexibility with my schedule, but it's a fair trade to not have to deal with that traffic. It's actually worked out pretty well for the both of us.
For the purposes of this blog post, though, the relevant bit is that the Mild Wife occasionally has to wait for me as the bus gets to the bus stop. Most of the time, she simply drives over from the house, so we arrive within a few minutes of each other. However, sometimes, she'll be out because she's running errands or she's got outings of her own. As a result, she might be at a restaurant while she's waiting. It's a pretty sane plan, if you ask me. I mean, if you have to wait, grabbing a quick snack or a beverage is a great way to kill that time.
On this particular instance, the Mild Wife stopped off at a restaurant that had an interesting happy hour menu. Now, she knew she had to drive, so she actually avoided any of the liquor. However, she did notice that there were lots of interesting options on that particular menu, so she sent me a few pictures of the menu because she figured I'd also be curious about them. In essence, she figured that if we both knew about it, we might be able to come back and visit sometime soon. And sure enough, I was intrigued enough by the options that I did make a mental note of visiting soon.
The best part, however, was when the Mild Wife asked, "is there a menu I can take home?" It was an innocent enough question, and she really just wanted to get a take-out menu. You've seen them before, they're little pamphlets that fold up. They're meant to be portable, and they let you know what you can order without having to go into the restaurant or look it up online. So, she figured that this restaurant might have one of those, and she could bring one home for us.
This particular waiter, however, interpreted the Mild Wife's request as a request to take a large, physical menu home. I should note that these menus are large. They are much, much larger than the usual 8.5 by 11 piece of paper, so these are not easy to come by. They are also printed on heavy stock, closer in consistency to cardboard than to printer paper. Basically, these are not just plain old pieces of paper.
Crazily enough, this waiter replied with, "well, I'm not supposed to give them out, but you can take that one." To this day, that bit of this story still makes me cackle. I have no idea what this person was thinking, but this turn of events was borderline ridiculous. He could have said no, he could've pointed the Mild Wife to a website (or Yelp), or he could've found one of their to-go menus. Instead, he decided to hand the Mild Wife one of the large, heavy-stock menus. So, the Mild Wife did as she was told, and took one of these home with her.
When she eventually showed this to me, I darn near erupted with laughter. I was amazed that she had left the restaurant with one of these things, and I immediately wanted to understand how this had happened. Once I heard the story, the laughs came in even larger bursts. She was handed a flippin' menu, for crying out loud.
The kicker, and the reason for the title of this post, came from the Mild Wife's response. Essentially, she said, "well, I asked and that's what happened." Behold, the power of asking. Sometimes, all it takes is just asking, and amazing things happen. I suspect this is not the last time the power of asking is going to make me crack up.
However, because I leave the office a bit later in the afternoon, that means that I will be leaving around the same time that the mid-afternoon traffic gets really bad. Even with the carpool lane, sitting in that traffic is not fun at all. So, the Mild Wife and I decided that I would take the bus to and from work. The idea is that neither of us should have to deal with that traffic. Sure, it means that I have less flexibility with my schedule, but it's a fair trade to not have to deal with that traffic. It's actually worked out pretty well for the both of us.
For the purposes of this blog post, though, the relevant bit is that the Mild Wife occasionally has to wait for me as the bus gets to the bus stop. Most of the time, she simply drives over from the house, so we arrive within a few minutes of each other. However, sometimes, she'll be out because she's running errands or she's got outings of her own. As a result, she might be at a restaurant while she's waiting. It's a pretty sane plan, if you ask me. I mean, if you have to wait, grabbing a quick snack or a beverage is a great way to kill that time.
On this particular instance, the Mild Wife stopped off at a restaurant that had an interesting happy hour menu. Now, she knew she had to drive, so she actually avoided any of the liquor. However, she did notice that there were lots of interesting options on that particular menu, so she sent me a few pictures of the menu because she figured I'd also be curious about them. In essence, she figured that if we both knew about it, we might be able to come back and visit sometime soon. And sure enough, I was intrigued enough by the options that I did make a mental note of visiting soon.
The best part, however, was when the Mild Wife asked, "is there a menu I can take home?" It was an innocent enough question, and she really just wanted to get a take-out menu. You've seen them before, they're little pamphlets that fold up. They're meant to be portable, and they let you know what you can order without having to go into the restaurant or look it up online. So, she figured that this restaurant might have one of those, and she could bring one home for us.
This particular waiter, however, interpreted the Mild Wife's request as a request to take a large, physical menu home. I should note that these menus are large. They are much, much larger than the usual 8.5 by 11 piece of paper, so these are not easy to come by. They are also printed on heavy stock, closer in consistency to cardboard than to printer paper. Basically, these are not just plain old pieces of paper.
Crazily enough, this waiter replied with, "well, I'm not supposed to give them out, but you can take that one." To this day, that bit of this story still makes me cackle. I have no idea what this person was thinking, but this turn of events was borderline ridiculous. He could have said no, he could've pointed the Mild Wife to a website (or Yelp), or he could've found one of their to-go menus. Instead, he decided to hand the Mild Wife one of the large, heavy-stock menus. So, the Mild Wife did as she was told, and took one of these home with her.
When she eventually showed this to me, I darn near erupted with laughter. I was amazed that she had left the restaurant with one of these things, and I immediately wanted to understand how this had happened. Once I heard the story, the laughs came in even larger bursts. She was handed a flippin' menu, for crying out loud.
The kicker, and the reason for the title of this post, came from the Mild Wife's response. Essentially, she said, "well, I asked and that's what happened." Behold, the power of asking. Sometimes, all it takes is just asking, and amazing things happen. I suspect this is not the last time the power of asking is going to make me crack up.
Comments
Post a Comment