The server has a name in the transcript but I dunno yet if she warrants a tag. My character tags are pretty bloated right now as is.
-EDIT- Font embiggened. I’m playing with different scaling methods, and miscalculated how much bigger the font needed to be.
↓ Transcript
AMANDA: Do they have those cheese mushrooms?
SELKIE: Chicken! Chicken, please!
TRACY: Did I just hear appetizer requests?
THEO: Ha ha, I think you did!
TRAY: OH! Hey wow, are you one of those “sarnothi” people?
SELKIE: Yes, ma’am. Fors the last eight years.
TRACY: Okay so, like, settle a bet? Do you REALLY only eat meat?
SELKIE: Plants makes me puke purple.
AMANDA: I can confirm this. I have witnessed the vivid violet violence.
TODD: Could we have a plate of the cheeseshrooms, a plate of grilled chicken fingers, and put the invasive questions on the side, please?
SELKIE: Chicken! Chicken, please!
TRACY: Did I just hear appetizer requests?
THEO: Ha ha, I think you did!
TRAY: OH! Hey wow, are you one of those “sarnothi” people?
SELKIE: Yes, ma’am. Fors the last eight years.
TRACY: Okay so, like, settle a bet? Do you REALLY only eat meat?
SELKIE: Plants makes me puke purple.
AMANDA: I can confirm this. I have witnessed the vivid violet violence.
TODD: Could we have a plate of the cheeseshrooms, a plate of grilled chicken fingers, and put the invasive questions on the side, please?
I've been unreasonably obsessed with sidecuts for a couple months now, finally found an excuse to put one in the comic.
I may have to give the font size a do-over later. Playing with new background processes again, something seems to have slipped on the font tho.
Pretty please! The Dondonesque Peepers struggle blow 14-point!
Font embiggened!
A noble spirit!
Agree on the font size. It seems like everyone is whispering.
Gotta agree, it’s hard for me to read, crummy eyesight not withstanding.
Todd, I think you’re taking this a little too personally. Cause admit, if you weren’t already in the know, you’d want to know everything about the new people, and behold, first new person. The server appears to be a curious teenager, I know I wouldn’t have been able to control at least a question or two. Now if Selkie was showing discomfort at these questions, I would 100% support Todd for stepping up. But she seems cool with answering questions. Heck, she’s probably excited she doesn’t have to pretend she has an illness, or genetic disorder, or whatever, but she can be recognized as not human, and it’s a-okay.
Not to mention asking this also makes sure she’s made aware of any potential allergic reactions.
yeah, asking questions about food allergies, and similar health problems, is very important information to know in the food, hospitality, and medical industry.
the worst thing for a restaurant would be accidentally giving an entire demographic of customers, food poisoning.
knowing that you can’t serve an entire demographic certain foods, could prevent a very bad incident.
knowing that sugars, juice, alcohol, and most plants are bad for sarnothi as food,
but that sarnothi can drink tea,
and eat any foods that are meat, eggs, or dairy
and based on the tea, perhaps season food with mild spices,
would be very useful information to know when cooking for them, or offering them suggestions from the menu.
I think it is mostly because she just asked them and didn’t ask “Mind if I ask you” first
Like, she starts off by saying: Settle a bet for us
I used to work in Food Service. Might have needed to phrase it more tactfully, but I did have this sort of situation regularly. For example a family came in and the wife was wearing a Hajib. So I made certain to tell them that our fish was beer-battered and the frier recycled the oil. Because I didn’t know if they were Islamic or how strict their adherence to the “no alcohol” rule was. In this case the most likely scenario is that as Sarnothi became public the chefs may have had to take a lesson on Sarnothi physiology by Dr. Pohl and learned that Sarnothi are intolerant of vegetation but can build up a small amount of tolerance over time, but others heard that they were obligate carnivores and thought that they cannot digest it, and others may have thought that it was cultural thing where they can handle small amounts of vegetation but prefer meat primarily.
So, being generous the phrasing was probably a lead-in for clarification of whether it was an allergy, intolerance, or preference, as well as finding out if they needed any special preparation for the materials. For example: can she have breading on her fried chicken? Or does this plate have to be made with just battering? Will she have a bad reaction to vegetable oil? Or is it just the actual vegetables itself? Do spices trigger her allergy?
Also it could be job related, Tracy servers food. If a Sarnothi orders something that has veggies in it, Tracy will now know to say, “Hey, that has veggies in it, you might want to have this…” and keep her customer safe.
Both you and Diane make good points. OTOH, Todd’s protective instincts are finely-honed and his response civil. Focus, Tracy, please.
While, as a parent, I understand Todd’s desire to defend his daughter, I do think a food service worker wanting to know the extra info about an entire people that may become regular customers is probably a good thing. I’d give say her approach is a little unprofessional but banter like that is usually par for the course with servers at restaurants. The casual air of treating customers as friends is one of the best ways to ensure tips and such.
tbf, as a food service worker, I think knowing your clients’ dietary restrictions is pretty important. I wouldn’t call that particular question “invasive.”
I agree she is asking questions related to her job
Exactly. Wait staff, at least the good ones, tend to be very friendly and casual. This question while jovial sounding would give her very good information for work and frankly sounds less crude this way then just saying “Excuse me but can you tell me what you are and are not allergic to so we don’t accidentally kill a member of your race”
There is also a matter of a teenager talking to a child of said species as their first encounter. The teenager may not want to blurt out to an eight-year-old hey I heard some of our food may kill you – what can you actually eat. Although, that may be giving too much credit to the busy teen having to deal with who knows how many tables, especially at a table that may have already been unruly (what *were* Steve and Gramps doing on their own before?)
I think it’s cute how Selkie and Amanda are playing off each other’s wording. “Plants makes me puke purple.”
“I have witnessed the ‘vivid violet violence.'”
She is a writer in the making. 🙂
She’s been a writer for ages — needs encouragement in this realm. Recall her “troubled princess” stories? I feel a kinship with her over that sort of creative outlet.
I might have gone with, “vivid violet virulence.”
Todd’s being a bit rude here. It’s a teenager making conversation with a kid, and Selkie herself doesn’t seem bothered by it.
Teach her that if she’s uncomfortable being asked something like that, she can politely refuse to answer, but that’s it fundamentally *her* decision whether or not to do so. Don’t take her autonomy away from her.
I’m going to have to throw a flag on the “food service worker looking out for her customer” nonsense. You ever have a waitress ask if you were lactose intolerant when you ordered a milkshake? Or warn you that there were both milk and eggs in the pancake batter? Of course not. She just appeared normally curious. Three movies come to mind. The Cowboys, where all these white kids had never seen a black man before, and had questions. To Sir with Love, where one of the white English kids was shocked to find out that their new black American teacher had red blood. And Force 10 from Navarone, where one of the white Yugoslavian partisans was rubbing his handkerchief against the black American’s face, to see if it would come off. Rude? Yeah. But understandable.
Todd should be used to invasive questions. Growing up in a multiracial family. I can easily see, in high school, some kid saying, “Check out the hooters on that new girl, Marta”, and when Todd jumps him, the kid saying, “How can she be your sister? You’re white and she’s Mexican.”
It seems more likely that Todd is still pissed about the, “hahaha, soap opera family” comment, and the fact that he could not punch that woman in the face like he undoubtedly wanted to. And as time has gone on, and he’s gotten matter and matter about it, it finally broke out and he took it out on the waitress.
I really hate autocorrect. That last sentence should be MADDER AND MADDER, not matter and matter.
I mean, you could say that he has less energy than before…
If he’s that mad, he should channel it into social media.
Then he’d be the Madder Tweeter Dad.
I feel like dealing with invasive questions throughout ones life would have the OPPOSITE effect, where they’re more likely to set you on the defensive.
IDK, I guess I’m in the minority here by not seeing Todd as overreacting. If the question(s) had been asked in a more thoughtful way, it could have been okay.
Agreed on all points.
Todd’s being a good parent. He doesn’t want his child to be viewed as some sort of freakshow, and asking questions just to ‘settle a bet’ definitely falls in the dehumanizing category.
I admit I’m biased though. I use mobility aids because of my disability, and I’m used to people being tactless about it.
Thirded. Invasive questions asked in such a way indicate someone being viewed as a “curiosity” rather than an individual. It’s fine to be curious (how else do people learn new things?), but for the love of all that is good, be respectful!
It didn’t really sound, tone wise, like “concerned about food sensitivity”, a bit more like, “I had a conversation with my coworkers about this earlier and we made a bet, and I want to know whether or not I won the bet, so I’m going to point out an obvious difference in the most blunt way possible because I think it’s weird. My bet matters more to me than your feelings.” It’s rather rude to “make a bet” about someone’s dietary habits, because it falls into the category of “and why, exactly, would that matter to you personally?” (note: as in not in her capacity as a waitress, which qualifies as “work reasons” distinct from the individual) not entirely dissimilar from making a bet about someone’s sexuality, parentage, or possible criminal record. Even if you do make a bet, you don’t just SAY that! That’s pretty much the first rule of bet-making: It’s implicit unless somebody specifically asks or needs to know. Tangent aside, put it on the backburner and focus on the actual important part: the fact that it could create some food sensitivities is vital to the job in which you work, so ask for that reason and frame it as your concern about potential allergies/sensitivities _for the sake of the customer’s health._ That is quite different and comes off as considerate rather than invasive (it also uses different phrasing and facial cues than those used here). Only after your interaction is through can you go back to your buddies and be like “and oh by the way, I won the bet. Pay up.”
Sorry this comes off as a mite rant-y, it was not meant as such. Literally everything I write turns into a wall of text; I do not know how to be brief.
if you ran out of wall space, would that help with your writing?, maybe you could practice with shorter walls, kinda like those really short ones by garden paths? 😀
I’d say that if a regular human ordered a type of food with a common allergen in it, where that allergen is obviously in the name or common understanding of the food (e.g. wheat gluten in pancakes), it’s generally understood that we don’t have to question if they’re allergic to the thing they just ordered.
(OTOH, apparently it’s a common enough problem that we put “contains nuts” on bags of peanuts, so… maybe I’m being generous.)
However, say that we had just had First Contact with Vulcans, and wild rumors were flying, among them that Vulcans don’t eat meat. And a server wouldn’t know if this rumor were true, or what sort of restriction it might be if it were (physically unable to digest meat? culturally unwilling to kill an animal? physically unable to digest EARTH meat?).
More than that, though, they could expect that a Vulcan showing up in a burger place might not realize what all is in the food, in much the same way that a pasty-white American showing up in a traditional Thai restaurant would be commonly assumed to not understand how hot Thai food can get. (Anecdote I’ve heard: A guy learned just enough Thai to say “Make it hot like you’d make it for your brother” or some such, so they wouldn’t coddle him.) Because you may be operating on different scales of understanding (American 8/10 heat could be Thai 3/10 heat).
So if a Vulcan was ordering at my restaurant for the first time, I would feel the need to confirm basics, such as the fact that a hamburger isn’t ham but is still meat, or that a Chef Salad comes with meat on it, or that McDonalds fries use beef broth to flavor them (when my vegetarian friend found out, it was a sad day for him, but he chose to swear off the fries).
It’s not quite the same as routinely asking normal people if they’re sure they’re not poisoning themselves with the stuff they just ordered.
…Dammit, now I want some of those breaded cheese mushroom thingies. Piping hot from the restaurant kitchen, with a cold beer to chase it down, and pub food to follow. I’m tired of eating stuff like that half-cold.
I kinda think Todd’s overreacting as well. Is the question a little blunt? Yes. But I agree that in the long run the answer can serve the server well. 😛
On a side note, I’ve been re-reading the comic, and compared to how Selkie and Amanda started out, it’s totally awesome to see how they get along now!
Hey Dave, the font today is really hard to read on this page. The art also seems a little more grainy? Sorry about the criticism but this is hard for me to read today.
I resent the inability to delete comments when I realize I missed my topic already being covered
I’m actually glad you mentioned the art. Part of what I’m poking with on this one is a brush that has a it more emphasis on a rough-edged texture, and I used a pattern brush for the splash of shading on the characters. I’d be interested to know if by hard to read you meant only the (now fixed) overly-shrunk font size, or if the art itself is creating visual issues here.
I feel the line arts not easy to read either. I think the best part of the image to show that is Todds eyes in the last panel. The more grainy line style and new shading method doesn’t work well for smaller details in an image leaving them kinda blurry. Hope the feedback is useful.
I keep interpreting the shading on this page as bruising. I was like, ‘Did Todd throw fists with that rude person off screen?’ But that wouldn’t explain Amanda’s face…
Definitely feels like the art is…blurrier? Grainier? Something is different today. Did you work on a larger canvas and shrink it or something? (Or is it these new meds I’m taking?)
Everyone is raising very good points about the waitress and her question.
But no one is remarking on the Most Perfect Level of Snark that Selkie has achieved in seven words.
TRAY: OH! Hey wow, are you one of those “sarnothi” people?
SELKIE: Yes, ma’am. Fors the last eight years.
Selkie gave the waitress snark, Todd is following up with a bit of snark that points out to the waitress that she’s being rude to Selkie.
He’s not overreacting at all.
I wonder, does anyone here who posted that Todd is overreacting have experience with being a minority in some way? Disabled, POC, the girl at the all-male study group or DnD table? People can be rude even when they think they’re being friendly.
I’ve been the only woman at my friends’ game nights (for a long time, though by now we’ve got two regular women plus a couple who’ve come sporadically), though I can’t say that I’ve really felt like I’m a minority due to my gender, even there.
Plenty of experience with being the minority because my brain is weird, and because I don’t quite get the unspoken social rules of those around me (I have suspicions that I might be on the Autism/Aspergers spectrum, but as of yet no hard data there, and apparently it’s harder to tell in girls). Plenty of experience being the political and/or religious minority in a group, too.
I do understand that people can be friendly and rude at the same time, and that it’s sometimes the last straw after a trying day/week/year/life, so sometimes the reaction to perceived rudeness is disproportionate to the actual rudeness (yet still understandable) — like how a person asking to feel a PoC’s hair, even very politely, dredges up a lifetime of people treating PoC hair as community property (and yet there’s no reason to expect a person who’s not PoC to have encountered this issue previously and therefore know how much of a big deal it is).
Still, while I can’t say that Todd’s overreacting (due to that sort of context), I do think the waitress’s comment wasn’t too bad. As many have pointed out, it might be a less forward way of trying to establish how strictly they need to treat the “allergy,” and perhaps a way to try to make the child she’s asking feel less awkward/singled out (or deficient/flawed/disabled) and more cool/special/interesting, while still getting the pertinent info.
*Especially* in a world where waiters have to navigate a bunch of people getting upset at reasonable questions, plus a bunch of people claiming to have allergies they don’t have (because they can’t get many waiters/cooks to take their aversions seriously if they don’t claim it’s a medical issue). Getting the customer to feel special/interesting might be an easier way to avoid offense plus offer reliable, actionable intel so that they can avoid hurting not only this kid but future customers as well.
Addendum: I can acknowledge that this sort of social maneuvering is a thing and potentially a useful thing, and still hate that it’s necessary/reasonable. My brain does not like talking around basic issues like this; I’d much rather have people say things straight out. I just realize that that’s not the culture I live in.
(Related: A recent conversation I had on how a secondary password is called a “PIN” despite not being restricted to numbers/digits, because the average user will act differently if it’s called a password vs. if it’s called a PIN, and security is improved if we get them to act in the way they act when it’s called a PIN. Yargh.)
IDK about anyone else, but this just gave me AWFUL nostalgia for just walking into a restaurant and ordering a whole bunch of appetizers in anticipation of sitting around chatting with friends/family for a couple of hours.
Meh, Todd needs to chill out, that employee clearly thinks Selkie is cool. I personally find stuff like scars and stuff fascinating, if I work with someone long enough, I absolutely will ask about it.
You know, fungi are not plants. Maybe she would have less issue with them?