“It’s literally the worst thing I could possibly see at the beginning of the night. You know that scene in Jurassic Park where the water ripples because the dinosaur is coming? It’s like that. Pure dread and a feeling of impending doom.”
Amy Retallick (26) has been a waitress at the Fizzy Duck for about five years, paying her way through university on the back of some pretty decent tips.
Amy had just begun her shift this evening when she spotted Derrick Cates, a man who to her horror possessed the two attributes that fill her most with fear.
1. He is a man of Baby Boomer age.
2. He brought a fucking decanter.
Amy explains just how bad a development this actually is.
“This is bad. I’m in for a bad night. He's at a pretty large table of 8 people, so this guy is going to talk down to me like I’m a two year old all night. He’s going to ask ridiculous questions to show how smart he is. And when I do anything with the wine, he’s going to imply that I’ve done something wrong by saying something like ‘Here let me help you with that’. I might even get treated to a bit of his horrendous high school French accent. I'm not in the right headspace to deal with a decanter douche tonight.”
When we suggested that she may be overreacting, she pointed out that the vast majority of occasions on which a boomer has pulled out a decanter have involved at least some degree of obnoxious wankery. She also explains that they they are often the culprit of a far more serious crime.
"So the decanter douche tends to follow a pattern. Unsolicited recommendations of what other people should eat or drink. Showing off, talking down to me. But they often do something that makes me literally want to kill them. Tip Gripping. The lowest act of them all. They make a big song and dance about how they should all chip in and give me a tip. And they do. I see them hand proper money to him so I can get a healthy tip. Then he sneakily uses his card and gives basically no tip. He steals. He steals from me and he steals from his friends. I've seen it heaps of times. And it's nearly always the guy with the decanter. So yeah. Let's just say I don't like that guy."
As we left Amy, she was fielding a question as to the origin of one of the ingredients in the entree. We can't help but think she might be right about this guy.