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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (60634)	10/2/2002 3:34:26 PM
From: E	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Re apologies. Also including a restaurant recommendation. This happened last night. We arranged to meet three people at an event on the Bowery betw Bleecker and Houston. After the event, we were all going out to dinner. The restaurant was chosen by the other couple. The Sea, on 2nd Ave betw 4th and 5th. It doesn't accept reservations. (Supposed to have very good food, good prices, for anyone interested; I've never been there.) They called at the last minute and explained that they couldn't make the event, but would meet us at the restaurant at 8:15. The three of us walked over to the Sea. The place was crowded and not arranged so that five of us would be able to be seated comfortably, and i remembered a place just around the corner on 4th St, Cucina di Pesci, which while I'm at it I'll recommend (for anybody who visits the Lower East Side, aka the East Village) for quite good food and very reasonable prices and pleasant ambiance, though bad acoustics. We waited for fifteen minutes in front of the Sea, then went around the corner and took a table for five. By this time, our friends, the couple, were twenty five minutes late and we were all starving. We ordered drinks. Then an appetizer. Every few minutes, one of us ran around the corner to see if they'd finally arrived. This was annoying and inconvenient. N went looking for a place to buy some scotch tape and taped a note onto the door of the Sea telling them where were were. Afraid they wouldn't see it, I continued to make frequent trips around the corner. Finally they arrived at the Sea. They didn't notice the note, but one of the waiters in the restaurant had noticed N putting up the note, and when they came in looking around, asked if they were the ones for whom it was intended. We'd been waiting, inconvenienced and hungry, for over an hour, by this time. We'd ordered dinner. They explained that it would have been awkward to leave their earlier event any sooner, and why. We understood. But if they'd done that cooly, as though they were not truly sorry for the inconvenience and wasted time we'd experienced, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would have been miffed and thought badly of them. What I would have thought was, "Oh, they're the Never Apologize, Never Explain type. Fukem," and not liked them any more. As it was, their sincere, not to mention profuse, as was imo warranted, apologies communicated their true regret at the considerable inconvenience their lateness had resulted in for us three; and in a few seconds, they had ordered too, dinner commenced normally, all was totally well, and the next two hours were completely fun with no annoyance-hangover. They were not, imo, "obligated" to apologize, or to explain. Just as they aren't "obligated" to care about the way anyone else feels, ever, even when it can hurt them to be inconsiderate and casual in cases where they are implicated in others' discomfiture. When our friends apologized, I thought of this thread, and of how there are people here who wouldn't have, and who would have not cared whether the late arrivals recognized and regretted the experience we had had and that they had been the agents of; and showed it by apologizing.