Captain's Dinner, June 21

I just wanted to put in a quick story from the Captain’s farewell dinner. We had the dinner tonight instead of tomorrow, since we will be docked in Petropavlosk and people may want to wander off the ship and explore. I was dining with some very nice passengers. We were all done with our soup course and everyone was done with the salad course except for one gentleman, whom had exactly two bites left of his salad. The waiters came around and cleared everyone s plate but his and then went aside to wait patiently for his salad to be finished before bringing the main courses. The wait staff is very professional, and service is pretty formal, so of course, they did not want to rush anyone. Well, then the fun began. The man started to tell a story and every time he d lift his fork to take a bite, he’d put it back down again and keep telling the story. And every time he lifted his fork, our waiter would move in to clear his plate, only to turn around again when he put the fork down. This went on for about 10 minutes. About every two minutes, one of the waiters would walk by the table and then pretend to do something, like move a dish in the dirty dish bin, or fill waters, to check the salad progress. Well, after about 10 minutes, multiple waiters got involved and it was obvious to me that our main courses were ready, but they didn’t know what to do. Of course, I was the only one who noticed it all and kept smiling at the waiters and laughing. Everyone thought I was laughing at the story. Eventually, after he took one bite and only one was left (about 15 minutes for one bite), the waiters went and got the main courses anyway.

As they put the food in front of everyone else, one of the three went up and politely asked if he was done with his salad to which he replied, “Oh, I have one more bite”. At that point, I almost lost it laughing. And do I remember his animated story? Not one detail.