Act of Kindness – Week #11!!

"A person who is nice to you but is not nice to the waiter is not a nice person" (I laughed when I read this but there is some truth in this quote!)

     Fall is my absolute favorite season and football is a part of that! I am ready for some relaxing Sunday afternoon football! I am also still a big Kurt Warner fan even though he has not played professional football for a while! I probably proudly always will be too! I read the book “First Things First: The Rules of Being a Warner” by Kurt and Brenda Warner a couple years ago and several things about their family that was written in the book still stand out to me! The book lists the “Eight Rules for Being a Warner Daughter or Son” and here they are:

1. Everyone has to agree on which strangers’ meal to pay for when dining at a restaurant.

2. At dinner, share the favorite part of your day.

3. Hold hands and pray before every meal.

4. After ordering at a restaurant, be able to tell Mom the server’s eye color.

5. Throw away your trash at the movie theater and stack plates for the server at restaurants.

6. Spend one hour at an art museum when on the road.

7. Hold hands with a sibling for 10 minutes if you can’t get along.

8. If you can’t get along holding hands, sit cheek to cheek. (If you can’t get along cheek to cheek, then it’s lips to lips!)

     I started doing a lot of these rules myself after reading the book, but I slowly started to forget about some of them over the past couple years. I am happy to say that when thinking about what intentional new act of kindness I wanted to participate in this weekend, the book and this certain list came to mind again! If you do not already know, there are nine people in the Warner family so it makes a big difference when they follow rule #5 to “throw away your trash at the movie theater and stack plates for the server at restaurants”!

*The act of kindness this week…show kindness to a server at a restaurant by putting your plates and trash etc. in one neat pile on the table after you finish eating!!

 

*My experience with the act of kindness…My Husband and I enjoyed a lunch date this past Saturday at Crown Candy Kitchen in St. Louis, Missouri! We ate at Crown Candy Kitchen for the first time last year and upon arriving, the line to wait for a table was out the door and around the corner. This past weekend, my Husband and I tried to beat the lunch and dinner rush and go at what we thought was an in between time.  We still waited in line for an hour for a table but it was a pretty day outside, and I was talking with my love…so no complaints here! Crown Candy Kitchen sure is a popular place and that is probably why they have been in business since 1913!

     The employees at Crown Candy Kitchen seemed to be working very hard from the time we entered the restaurant to the time we left. My Husband and I commented that the servers probably go very quickly from table to table with little or no down time in between. Even though the restaurant was very busy, our server was very nice and did not show if she was overwhelmed or stressed out etc.

     My Husband ordered and ate all of the famous “Heart-stopping BLT” which is pictured below and an ice cream cone! I ordered a side salad and the “Turkey Bacon Melt” which I ate half of later for dinner! I dipped my “Turkey Bacon Melt” in a side of French dressing too! It was excellent! Am I making anyone hungry?!...just typing these past few sentences have made me hungry! Needless to say, we had several empty cups and plates on our table with quite a few used napkins by the time we were done! I kindly stacked our plates first, then my salad bowl and then the silverware, napkins and other trash on top. I also stacked our cups. I used one more napkin to wipe off the table! When we left, our server only had to pick up the plate pile and stacked cups! Think for a minute if you were her and you walked up to a table like that or a table with everything still all over the place! Far too often, servers are left to clean up unnecessary messes and sadly especially from those who think the term “server” is the same as “servant”.

     There are several ways to show kindness to a server at a restaurant…politeness, calling a server by their name when addressing them, holding a conversation that is deeper than just your food and drink order, cleaning up after yourself and tipping!

     I have left a restaurant far too many times with a mess for my server to clean up. To the server, this probably only showed thanklessness on my part when indeed that could have been the opposite of how I felt when leaving a restaurant. Let’s be intentional about expressing in actions that we are thankful even when we go out to eat at a restaurant! One simple way to start and to show kindness at the same time is by stacking our plates, silver wear, cups, trash etc when we are finished at a restaurant! I can almost guarantee the server will notice the difference at your table!! 

p.s. Please comment below with your own experience with this act of kindness! I would really enjoy hearing about it!!