AUDIE

We were at a restaurant last night and our waitress introduced herself as "Audie" and I asked, "Is that A-U-D-I-E?" She said, "YES, you're the only person who has ever spelled it correctly!" I said, "It's just like Audie Murphy!" She said, "I know about him but I've never met another Audie." I told her there's an actress named Audie England. She said, "Wow, I've never heard of her." Gerald said, "She remembers everything!" I asked if she thought it were difficult having an unusual name and she said that it was because nobody ever spelled it right. Gerald said, "I thought it was like the car Audi!" I told her that my friend Franchen had never met anyone with her name; my niece Deya had never met anyone with her name and my friend Fayetta had never met anyone with her name. I then told her that Oprah just recently met another Oprah!

Audie gestured toward a waiter and told us that his name was Brandon and that he was her partner and that if she weren't close by, to tell Brandon if we needed anything.

Brandon was serving two tables and he kept telling the customers useless tidbits about himself and his family. I learned that he and his siblings had been reared by a single mother and about his football experiences. He made a mistake on one of the customer's order and had to summon the manager. He kept apologizing profusely and telling them words of wisdom from his mother: "If you're gonna do it, do it right."

He kept suggesting menu items to both sets of customers. I was eating my soup when he said that they should consider the "Mussels de Napoli" except that he pronounced it
"Mussels de NUH-POLE-EE!" and then he asked them if they knew what mussels were. That's when I did a spit-take with my soup!

He continued imparting more of his mother's words of wisdom as he had "CONVERSATED" with her earlier that day.

He told one customer that he was the "ONLIEST" one in his family to go to college!

Later on he said that something was in "THE EXACT SAME PLACE".

When Audie came to complete her service, I asked, "Audie, do you have a few minutes to talk?" She looked at her tables and said, "Yes, of course; what did HE say?"

I explained that I didn't want to cause Brandon any more trouble as I was certain the manager was already upset with him, but that he needed to learn to act appropriately. I told her, "Please tell him how to pronounce NAPOLI if he's going to be condescending to customers by asking if they knew what mussels are and please tell him that CONVERSATING and ONLIEST are NOT real words and that IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE is redundant and customers don't want to hear about him. Audie nodded and said, "It's ALWAYS about the customer unless the customer asks about me!"