What happens in the video
“You gave away my table!” Outside a restaurant, a woman in a white dress confronts a server in a blue apron. Diners sit beneath patio umbrellas, and a small dog lies near the doorway. “You reserved the inside section,” the server explains. “I asked for the patio.” The server answers, “The booking says indoors.”
A man comes forward and asks, “Why is our server wet?” The customer points at her. “She ruined my evening!” He checks the reservation and shows the customer the confirmation. “The patio request was declined in the confirmation email.” Looking at it, she admits, “I never read that part.” The server gets the last word. “You could have asked to change it.”
Continuation:
The woman read the email again. Below the line she’d missed was a little button marked CHANGE REQUEST. She’d been close enough to notice a water spot on the manager’s watch. Until that instant she hadn’t noticed that the server’s shoes were wet too.
“My sister’s arriving in five minutes,” she began. It sounded like the beginning of another excuse. She stopped. “Could somebody bring us a towel?”
The server took the first towel for herself and gave her a second one for the puddle. Down on one knee in a white dress, Lydia found herself eye to eye with the little dog. He gave the towel an experimental tug. A minute earlier she might have snapped at his owner. Now she let go, and he looked so surprised by his easy victory that she laughed.
Her sister arrived to find the manager holding the dog, Lydia wringing out a towel, and a perfectly nice table for two waiting just inside the open doors.
“Did I miss dinner?”
“You missed me making a fool of myself,” Lydia said. She told her what had happened, including the part about accusing the server in front of strangers. Her sister listened. Then she looked through the open doors. “Can we sit in there? The sun’s right in my eyes out here.”
That was the part Lydia remembered later. She’d spent a week planning their first meal together since her sister moved home. She’d chosen the patio, checked the weather twice, even picked the chair her sister ought to have. It had never occurred to her to ask where her sister wanted to sit.
Before ordering, Lydia found the server. “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that. You read my booking properly. I didn’t.” The server thanked her, changed into dry shoes, and handed their table to a colleague for the rest of the evening.
Inside, the sisters divided a plate of little fried potatoes. A breeze came through the doors. When the rain started, they were already on their second pot of tea, watching four patio tables make a hurried and decidedly undignified move indoors.
