The check, please!

I do not understand how restaurants survive. Most have very extensive menus. Whatever entree I choose, it will be delivered to me within 15 minutes or less. Either they have a lot of food on standby or they are cooking with a flamethrower. What do they do with all the unsold entrees? I should come back later and hang out by the dumpster.Pizza takes more time, but everybody is used to waiting for pizza. Indeed, if you didn’t have to wait you would probably feel that something wasn’t right. I know I would. I need that time to have a beer at the bar.Chinese restaurants seem to use holding vats. If you are tall enough, you can peek over the really high counter and see the array of bubbling containers of delicious-smelling stuff. I am a sucker for the sweet and sour sauce. I load it onto whatever I get to the point that it doesn’t really matter what I get since the sauce is all I can taste. The fortune cookie is kind of neat, but it is somewhat disturbing when you open your cookie and there is nothing in it. I dip mine in sweet and sour sauce.Sadly, only about 50 percent of my dining out experiences have been enjoyable. I seem to lose the table lottery more than I should. Every restaurant has at least one table with a short leg. Other culprits range from the incredible disappearing server to time-sensitive errors like the wrong dinner for my tablemate. Tip: Most people will tell you to go ahead and eat while your dinner is hot. Say, “Are you sure?” They have to answer yes. “Oh no, I wouldn’t think of it,” allows them to say nothing and now you are stuck.Often I have had to get up from my table and steal silverware from another table setting. Sometimes the people get upset when they realize I am not their server. Totally uncalled for. Nobody needs two forks. I can’t really send for my guy because I don’t remember his name or what he looks like. They dress them all alike, just to confuse me. How about a little card at the table? It might say something like, “Hi! My name is Waldo. I am your server. Can you find me?”In the end, I am a coward. I still feel compelled to tip, even when I have to go to the hostess station and ask for my check. Somehow they manage to make me feel like it was my fault that I couldn’t find Waldo. Bill Abrams resides in Pine Plains, from where he somewhat contently dines inside his own kitchen.