Important

Yesterday I had lunch at a local cafe with a dear friend of ours, Auntie Marvellous. That's not her real name of course, and strictly speaking she's not Mars and Venus' Auntie, but she really is marvellous.

Anyway this cafe, it's nice, but it's not super nice. Main courses range in price from $15ish to $30ish, and it's been recently renovated, so it looks swanky and new.

As we were chatting and waiting for our food I observed over Auntie Marvellous' shoulder a couple eating their lunch. They were well dressed but not overdressed, chatting and eating quietly. Unremarkable.

Unremarkable until they had finished their glasses of wine. One would think that one or the other of them would pick up the half full wine bottle sitting on their table and refill their glasses. But no.

The man picked up the wine bottle and waved it at a waiter who was heading to the kitchen, and then he put it back on the table. The waiter came over and refilled their glasses, and left the bottle on the table.

Auntie Marvellous saw the somewhat horrified expression on my face, but couldn't see what was going on behind her. 

I thought it was just me thinking that the man was being quite rude. Surely your average person would fill their own glass in a cafe. I apologised to Auntie Marvellous for being so distracted and filled her in on what was going on. 

She agreed that it was kind of rude, considering where we were. In a posh restaurant where there are no prices on the menu I'd expect to see that kind of behaviour, but not there. It seemed especially rude given that he'd actually picked up the bottle to get someone's attention. It would have been faster just to pour his own drink while he had the bottle in his hand. 

Minutes later when those glasses were drained again the staff were all avoiding eye contact with this guy (or so I'm sure it seemed to him), so with a grumpy expression he picked that bottle up for the last time and drained what was left into their glasses. They finished their lunch, paid and left.

I'm no good at remembering clever quotes and things like that, but one thing I do remember is this: it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.

That man is probably lucky he didn't order a dessert, his waiter might have been tempted to spit in it.