The other night, apropos of nothing, the Wife and I were trying to remember if we did anything for our 10th wedding anniversary. I thought that we had gone out to a nice restaurant, but I always cede to her superior memory for things like this.
Turns out that I was right. From my blog of that time (8/21/2004):
Thank you, all, for your anniversary wishes. We had a great time, and went to Dunaway’s, a wonderful little restaurant on the south end of downtown Indy. We didn’t have to order hot dogs and fries for the kids, we didn’t have to make sure there was lemonade. The Wife had lobster ravioli, and I had the grilled hanger steak. We each had a mondo glass of wine and beef carpaccio for starters. The portions were the perfect size. I highly recommend it for special occasions.
However, it did point out one of my pet peeves (It wouldn’t be a blog if I didn’t complain, right?) The correct response to “Thank you” is “You’re welcome”, not “Thank you”. The relative status of the participants in the conversation doesn’t matter. I think that I would be OK with “Yes, sir/ma’am” as a rejoinder when it is a patron/server. I am thanking you for taking my order/serving/cleaning up my place, you should not at the same time thank me for something. I’m all for customer service, and you taking care of my every dining need, but please, this degree of subservience is not needed.
Also, it has been mentioned/made fun of elsewhere, but customer service people still say, “What can I get for you today?” to which the only proper response is “Nothing, but you can get me something on May 23rd, 2008.” It must have been some mid-level marketing manager 20 years ago that started this evil trend to differentiate his customers’ experience, but now it’s just silly. Related is the phrase, spoken at the checkout, “Is that all for you?” Again, the proper response is “No, I intentionally didn’t pick up pork rinds just so you can ask me about it.” This works even better at Barnes & Noble. Your job as an associate/bookseller/customer service representative/drone is to make me want to buy more things. “Can I get anything more for you?” is a much more effective formulation.
Apparently, there are no traditional anniversary gifts for the years between 15 and 20. So, I’ll have to make something up when this year’s comes around.
