to have thought i was capable of choosing my own food in a restaurant?

[booyhoo]

in a restaurant for lunch yesterday with OH. the waiter addressed all questions to OH including what i would like to order!!! throughout the meal he hovered about and asked OH if everything was ok with the food. i answered that it was. he still didn't look at me or acknowledge me. only when he came to ask how OH was paying and i told him that i was paying by card did he look at me. however even as i was entering my PIN he completely ignored me and talked only to OH about his plans for the day. i have never been treated so badly in a restaurant. i was totally shocked that someone can get away with treating customers like that. needless to say, i did not tip.

Grace you are wonderful!

And Slug. Nice.

Cafe Rouge is shit. We used to rent a place three doors down from one in Oxford. The place was cheap and crap and riddled with mice, and soon after we moved in it was taken back by the landlord to gut it internally. Anyway, all the buildings on that road are connected, so imagine our surprise when Cafe Rouge was shut down as mice had been found on the restaurant floor (the dining bit!), and mouse droppings in bags of food.

Ewwwww. Especially ewwww because we knew the mice must have been establishing themselves there for months, if not years.

our washing machine was leaking. the seal had a slight tear in it. the repair man replaced it and dh asked him how he thought it had broken. the repair man said..

'she probably ripped it pulling her bra out'

!!!!!!

i was in the living room. i had not seen the repair man. the repair man did not know i was in, nor that dh even had a dw/dp. though i suspect our purple kitchen may have given this away. HOWEVER, the repair man would also have been unaware of the fact that dh does all the washing in our house...bras and all!

no it was in portsmouth. i was on holiday visiting OH for the bank holiday so maybe my scary alpha female vibes were on holiday too

slug i cannot believe that waiter. i would have demanded his immediate sacking!!

at ruddynorah. What did your DH do or say?

This kind of treatment ALWAYS pisses me off... and Im a fierce old boot who fends for herself always... exept for in a restaurant where I always want DP to order for me, speak to the waiters, pull my chair out etc...

Very odd... wonder what a phycologist would make of it..?

puppykin my dh laughed. yes, he laughed. apparently i have 'no sense of humour.'

oh booyhoo where in portsmouth?? I have just been to gunwharf for something to eat but didn't come across this. Mindyou it was order at the (very slow) bar service!!

Ruddynorah, if you did not slam his head in the washing machine then you were admirably restrained.

[peace to mankind emoticon]

it was at gunwharf mumbar. at the sea front.

Years ago we drove the car down into the village, stopped to get some wine en route to a friends house.

Got back into the car and it wont start.

Call the AA, who duly arrive, I said it sounds like the alternator.

He looks at DH and says I am not ruling anything in or out at this stage.

She is not your average girlie, she is probably right you know.

AA man semi rolled his eyes.

DH (now pissed off) said when you do we are having coffee over there, can you let us know.

About 40 minutes later AA man arrives in coffee shop and looks directly at DH and says it is the alternator, DH pretended not to hear him over the background noise and made AA man repeat himself.
He then practically shouted at me, you were right and the AA man was wrong darling it was the alternator.

Mr AA slunk out of there as quickly as he could whilst DH was asking Mr AA if he needed my diagnostic help on the next job.

Slipping that is funny, good on your DH!!

oh booyhoo its quite a pretensious place down there at times very wannabe posh bars and restuarants thinking they are a cut above - I'm still wondering when they'll realise they're still in middle of bloody portsmouth

Go one name and shame the place

YANBU Why didn't you speak up at the time?

We once had an utterly bizarre experience in Venice were the waiter decided after my husband ordered a starter that actually he was going to have something else he didn't want to make the soup. TBH he was so OTT (he pretty much dragged us into the restaurant from the street) we couldn't help but giggle through the whole meal.

Great thread! Just found an interesting article on The Invisible Woman by Arabella Weir, creator of the Fast Show character "Girl who boys can't hear" Scroll down a bit for more pertinent anecdotes.

Can't find any clips on You-tube but some of you might remember the sketches. I think they often involved mechanics

Oh and music is also the province of men it seems. The number of times boys couldn't hear me when I suggested the correct chords to play during their half-hearted attempts at guitar ... completely and totally ignored then one of them would go and find the sheet music and there they were.

Have also had the:

"I want to speak to the manager!"

"I am the manager Sir"

"No I want to speak to a man"

see, this is why i love my local garage - they don't have any of these preconceived ideas that women know nothing about cars (or at least, that's how they appear to me)
and they don't do this whole "ooh, i'll have to run tests on that" when you tell them what you think the problem is.
they listen to the evidence you give them and make their minds up on that.
and it's not because i'm more confident than a woman would normally be, they are just not chauvinist pigs.

Three cheers for slipping's DH! Excellent example of how to stand up for your wife!

I have had this sort of thing when we bought a car. DH, me and DD2 (6 weeks old, in her carseat). No problem with Saab, BMW, Mercedes, LandRover etc - all the salesmen at these garages asked 'Who is the car for?' and as soon as we said it was for me, everything was directed to me.

Then we went to Volkswagen. Dumbass salesman addresses everything, but everything to DH. Who says
'It's not for me, I can't drive, my wife is the one who knows about cars.'
It continues.
DH says 'No, mate, I can't drive. She's the one with the purchasing power.'

DH eventually resorts to wandering off with DD2 in order to force the bloke to talk to me. As soon as DH comes back, the bloke switches his attention to DH again!! It was absolutely incredible.

I bought a Saab.

Oh, and have also had the thing where I take out my credit card to pay in a restaurant, and they hand it to DH to key in the number.

Because women can't have a card that says Dr. P. Surname, can they??

It's really not surprising that we still have issues with racism and sexism when this level of chauvinism persists so strongly, is it? Attitudes take a long time to change overall.

I bet that most of these chauvinists aren't even that old, are they?

so SPB - The Salesman went red and the manager stepped in, offering coffee and directing everything to me.

I did buy a car there, actually ended up buying 3 from that garage. NEVER had a problem again, they even used to give me brand new cars to go to work in when mine went for service/MOT etc instead of the crappy courtesy cars.

I was considering getting a bespoke bunk bed (dont ask) from these guys - I was particularly happy to see this page - even I a LADY can out the bed together!
www.pinebed.co.uk/page7a.html

I had the same problem with a VW dealer a few years ago when I was looking for a new car after writing off another. Took my DP along as I trust his judgement. The salesperson (meh!) was blethering on at DP and DP pointed out that I was the one wanting to buy. I suggested a few cars I wanted to test drive but he wouldn't consider it unless I was definitely going to buy one of them and I said well how will I know that until I test drive them? He did not have a satisfactory answer.

I bought another Honda whose dealers seem to be able to treat women as human beings!