I should have known when a server almost ran over me instead of waiting for me to pass on my way into The Cheesecake Factory that the experience was not going to be fantastic.  But then I thought I was being too picky and just needed to enjoy my lunch date with my husband while the grandparents babysat for the sick kids.  How often do we really get out anymore?  After the week I had, I was not going to start off with a bad attitude.  Then the little man at the host desk didn't even make eye contact as he told us to go check in upstairs for the great booth he had for us.  Wasn't that an awfully bold and showy description for someone who won't even physically show enough interest in his job to look at us?  We went upstairs to be taken to our booth by a hostess with scary drawn-on, honorary-member-of-the-Latin-Kings eyebrows-- which I could have noticed only in passing if our great booth didn't leave me staring at the host stand from my seat.   
    Then we were greeted by Tiffany,  our very uninterested and disengaged server.  My husband ordered a beer; I just wanted water to start while I looked at the menu.  She brought water for both of us while she went back to get the beer, which would not have been odd at all if one water had not contained a lemon.  Or if both waters had contained a lemon.  But we got one of each.  Luckily I don't mind citrus fruit in my water, so I went ahead and took the one with the lemon.  My husband, E, was not very pleased to see the pink glittery lipstick on my glass, but I didn't care to drink out of it without a straw (with or without the lipstick) so what was the difference?  Or at least that was my excuse for not telling Tiffany I wanted a new glass.  I just got the impression that I'd better have my food in front of me before I got on her nerves too badly if I didn't want to be the victim of some restaurant atrocity that you would see on a hidden-camera news story.  Good grief, I'm paranoid.  It doesn't make me a difficult customer to prefer a clean drinking glass!  So I asked for a straw. 
    As we ordered our appetizer (and my glass of wine) I noticed the sleeves of Tiffany's white button down shirt were not only rolled up, but stained with various splatters, indicating to me that they had been that way since the beginning of her shift.  I wasn't even allowed to casually roll up the sleeves of my white oxford when I worked at an Italian restaurant that sold heaping bowls of spaghetti for six bucks!  Isn't this place supposed to project a semi-upscale image?
    While we waited for our food, Tiffany brought us our basket of bread.  I was very disappointed to see that it only contained crusty white bread and not the famous oat-topped brown bread that yields 35,900 Google search results for the recipe.  As I sipped my wine, I wondered if they really could have discontinued such a popular item.  My husband and I pondered this as his attention turned to the spots on the silverware, which brought my attention to the fact that my spoon's handle had been bent to the angle of a ladle-- a "spladle", if you will.  He recalled a story about the good old days when The Cheesecake Factory was fairly new to town and he had to wait on a buddy of his who worked there to finish meticulously polishing and rolling his silverware before he could leave at the end of his shift.  How times change...
    We enjoyed people watching out the window for a while.  My husband's personal favorite was what he referred to as a "sweaty-footed hippie" protesting on the street corner without shoes, while I took a liking to a woman who circled the block no less than five times in her Ford Edge with disfiguring damage to its front fender-- evidence of what happens when one consistently pulls out in front of people with reckless abandon as she repeatedly did.
    When our food arrived, I found myself without opportunity to ask about whether the brown bread had been discontinued due to Tiffany being in a hurry to go back to holding up the wall by the bar (Hubby thought she must have been smitten with the bartender and thought they made a nice couple due to their matching BCGs).  This bothered me, but my mood was brightened by the sight of a busser who had a buzz cut with one very interesting architectural feature:  A quarter-inch wide ring of hair around his head had been left approximately two inches long, making it possible for it  to be shellacked straight up in the air.  It looked as though he was wearing a patent leather crown!  How fun!
    I found my opportunity to satisfy my curiosity when Tiffany came back to check on us.  I asked if they had stopped carrying the brown bread.  The response was shockingly bad on a few different levels.  First off, she rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh.  Next, she stuttered for a while as she tried to think of something to say.  Then she told me she'd been unable to get any upstairs all day, despite her efforts, but she would see if she could maybe get me some from downstairs.  To me, it would have been better if she had just said that they did have some and she would be right back with it.  Because we both knew that the reason she didn't bring it in the first place was because she didn't feel like going down there to get some when she thought maybe I would eat the white bread and not say anything.  So when she brought it back to the table, I decided that I would eat all of it.  What point that was supposed to prove, I don't know.  I just decided that I was sure going to show her!
    To maintain a certain level of objectivity, I feel like I should point out something that Tiffany did right:  she came by the table and asked me if I would like another glass of wine before my glass was empty (but when it was low enough to warrant the question).  Unfortunately for her, E was away from the table when she asked, so I didn't know if we were going to stay for another drink or not.  When he got back from smoking outside,  I remained true to my self-promise and polished off my brown bread while he told me about waiting outside for a gentleman (who was apparently wearing a notably fantastic pimp suit) to have his picture taken in the main path before crossing so he wouldn't interfere with the photo.  Then there were several more photos that needed to be taken, and as E waited patiently he discovered that he was not alone.  There was, in fact, a small group of people all waiting to get across the photo spot to go inside.  He did notice one exception to the rule, though.  The wait staff continually passed through the shots in order to get where they were going.  Any place I have ever worked has emphasized that the guest has the right-of-way.  It shows respect... or at least a desire to earn their business by not cutting them off!  As we saw our lunch date come full-circle from the seemingly insignificant slight I noticed as we entered, we decided that we would just take some cheesecake to go and share it with the kids at home.  We had gotten our fill of The Cheesecake Factory experience for a good long while.  I will take every moment of this outing back to work with me to ensure that no one leaves my restaurant feeling like they had wasted their hard-earned money on a company that doesn't appreciate the business.

CL