She brought our desserts to the table and placed them in front of us.. and then...

[Bunty55]

the waitress placed my spoon into my custard.
I was miffed.

I am 67, just had my birthday. I am the same as I ever was, same face, same figure, same vitality. The only thing that is different about me is the colour of my hair. I quit dyeing it two years ago and it is now silver.

I have noticed that I am sort of becoming invisible in a way I never imagined, and both my daughter and I think it is because of my hair.
Everyone at the table noticed what she did and were gobsmacked. I had to fish the spoon out and wipe it down since half of the handle was covered in bloody custard.
I would not even do that to my grandchildren !
I like my hair colour, but I do not like being treated as if I am in need of help.
Luckily, she did not offer to feed me :(

I hope if you complain that she gets her just desserts.

Probably just hoping you wouldn't notice the stain once it was covered in custard.

If you were at a Beefeater type restaurant OP, did you ask for a second portion of Custard? I always do, because the amount of (way too thin anyway) custard that you get with treacle or sticky toffee pudding is ridiculously small - IMHO you have to have just the right amount of Custard to a sponge pudding, or a fruit tart!

Please have a nice big pot of custard from me 🍯 but if it turns out that it is honey in the pot, not Custard, can you leave it outside for the poor bees, who keep on getting their own honey stolen 😭 🐝🐝

NB Someone put a spoon in that pot of custardhoney, I wonder if it was the same waitress, and if so, why she did it 😡

This sounds like a you and your family problem, tbqh.

I would have thought "Oh okay" and then forgotten about it the next second.

This.

I had to car share with colleagues between sites on a few occasions and every time we passed a field of animals I made the appropriate animal noise as if I was in the car with my kids. I COULD NOT stop myself. So embarrassing.

I don't understand any of this!
Was the spoon already on the table or brought with the pudding?

I get it, OP, as someone who would be totally grey if I stopped with the highlights, lowlights and all-over base colour.
But I'd have called her back and said 'er, scuse me, why did you plonk my spoon right into the custard? The handle's covered!'
(And let her apologise before asking her to please replace the custardy spoon so I didn't get it all over my hands. )
And if i didn't get the chance to do exactly that it would it would play on my mind, too. Because it's either weird or rude.
Seems your family thought that too but because it didn't happen to them they laughed. They'll change their tune when they're on the receiving end.

With regard to the spoon incident... I would feel very annoyed. You'll never actually know why the waitress did it but it is unacceptable and I would have refused the dessert. I'd email the restaurant about it.

Fucking hell...

I'm having one of my "Mumsnet is a parallel universe" moments.

I agree, we need more clarity on the spoonage:

• Was it upright in a caddy and yours was the only spoon assisted from caddy to pudding? Everyone else got assisted from caddy to table at the 12 o’clock position – or not assisted at all?
• Was it on the table at 12 o’clock then transferred to the custard?
• Or were spoons brought to the table with puddings, perhaps the bowl on a board and the spoon on the board too? Could it have started to slip from board to table and she was rescuing it?

In short, OP, can we have a diagram? I’ll place the pen in your hand if it helps.

She put a spoon in your dessert? It's hardly like she cut up your main course for you.

It spoiled a nice time and we won't be going back.

I’m sorry that you are feeling so self conscious about getting older and it sounds like your family aren’t the best either!

The waitress putting the spoon in your custard has no correlation with your age.

This has happened to me before a couple of times and i was in my 20s and definitely didn’t look older.
I didn’t think anything of it as I wasn’t already conscious about my hair or age.

Do your family often ‘banter’ about your appearance?

I think some mumsetters just love looking for reasons to get annoyed ... I am grey haired and over 60, my DM is white haired and 90, we frequent restaurants a lot ... we are never treated like that. The waitress was probably having a mild 'off' moment, surely the thing to do at the time was quietly ask for a fresh spoon.

Like a PP, I'd assume she either has small DCs or a relative that she would put the spoon in for, and she had a lapse in concentration.

I'd have laughed and commented on it at the time.

I'm the same age as you, I'm very fortunate and am pretty much still the same as I was in my 40's.

I can assure you, you might feel the same, but you will certainly look older now, 20 years on.

I would feel very annoyed and I would have refused the dessert. I'd email the restaurant about it.

Oh dear 🤣
@Squills

@KettrickenSmiled I love your idea here. I wish the OP would do it, while one of the "old biddies" (I'm allowed to say that because I am an old biddie too ☺️) secretly films it!

But I particularly like your last line .....

I have grey hair and I know for a fact that this wouldn’t ever happen to me as I don’t like custard and would have asked for it without custard.

I don’t like gravy either, which is probably just as well or else no doubt I’d get my knife shoved in there or something at restaurants. It’s a worry.

Oh god I did something similar at work yesterday 🤦‍♀️ I had been awake since 3am because of my youngest daughter, been at work since 10am and it was around 8pm when I did it, we were very understaffed and incredibly busy and I just acted without thinking. I was completley mortified afterwards and it certainly didn't have anything to do with the customer looking frail/like they need help (it was a very large man who thankfully just gave me a bit of a raised eyebrow).

I'm sure it was nothing personal, we are all human and just lapse into autopilot sometimes - especially when tired. She probably didn't realise she had done it, and if she did was too embarrassed to bring it up and hoped it would be ignored!

Putting the spoon in though...... it went beyond the pale:)

Of course it did OP, it's akin to murder . Hope you called the Police.

yes, could have been a mark on the spoon so she rammed it in to the custard instantly.
If you'd just eaten a dinner then it doesn't make sense that you'd need help lifting the spoon.

You don't put people's cutlery into their food when you serve them do you? You put it on the side. That's really weird of her. You think she did it because she assumed you were an old lady? Could be. A lot of people patronise the fuck out of people they deem "elderly", things like 'aw aren't you adorable" or treating them like some novelty to be fawned over. I'm not even old but I find it sickening and if people do it to me when I'm old I'm going to use my old lady card and swear at them loudly.

“It was decided that she thought I was an old lady because of my hair since there could not be another reason.”
That is Quite a jump but more importantly don’t let your family tease you about it it’s your birthday !
Who cares about the waitress is your family that should be spoiling you

Sorry OP but this really made me laugh out loud.. I really don't think this was down to hair colour!!

All the people who don't see the problem: you will when you're over 65 or so.

Maybe not the hair but a perceived vacant expression 😶?
maybe she thought you needed a visual prompt ?
maybe she’s a mystery shopper type waitress assessing the density of the custard ?
maybe the custard is a tad cool and it’s her way of saying don’t hang about love - it’ll grow a skin soon ?
maybe she saw a bug and went to fish it out and thought better of it ?
maybe she’s starving and couldn’t help herself and then stopped shovelling a gob full ?

spoiler : you / we will NEVER know 😊
enjoy the mystery !!