Moochers

Some people have no pride and sponge off others, and one particular English fellow stands out in my mind.  He lived on a boat in the harbor, and seemed to eat and drink only at the expense of others.  He wasn’t a poor man, it was just his way, and I for one found it very irritating.

The fellow came to the Pizzeria often, always alone and never having made a reservation.  He didn’t need to book a table, there were already eleven of them in my dining room and he always managed to find a spare chair.  His timing was impeccable, he would join a table just as pizzas were being brought from the kitchen, and invariably one of the guests would ask for an extra plate for their new friend.  In my book if a person does this once or twice it’s fine, if it’s a full-time occupation then he’s a mooch!

This yachtie was a mooch with a capital M.  I would watch him make his rounds, carrying his chair from one table to the next during the course of the evening.  He would chat up total strangers in order to join them, then happily eat whatever they offered.  I found this quite shameless, and took him to task about it when I felt he was free-loading too often.  His theory was that the tourists liked chatting with someone familiar with the Island, and if they shared their food what was the harm in it??

I spoke to Mac about the Englishman.  He was a casual friend of ours and I didn’t want the situation to escalate into any kind of confrontation.  Mac thought it was funny but it irritated me to no end, Mac didn’t have to watch it happening night after night!  The tourists DID seem to enjoy his company, and didn’t seem to mind sharing their food. My main problem was that the fellow could talk a blue streak, and held my guests captive to the extent that they lingered after they had eaten when the tables were all re-booked.  Many times I had to explain to those arriving for the second sitting that their table wasn’t ready, and I hated doing that with a passion.

One day the fellow made a reservation, his first ever!  His mother was visiting from England and they were going to dine at the Pizzeria.  I was sure his mother was going to be paying but at least he wouldn’t be moving from table to table to mooch from the tourists.  They arrived unfashionably late, they had been enjoying pre-dinner cocktails at the Frangi and were not at all apologetic.  Mom was JUST like her son, she also talked a blue streak – she talked so much that that it took her forever to eat just one slice of pizza!  Sigh.  Table two was not going to be leaving in time for the second sitting, Mom was having too much fun meeting all the people in the dining room.

Mother and Son stayed throughout the second seating, and I personally served those who had booked table two down in the garden, comping their drinks because their reservation had been screwed up.  Mom managed to meet the second wave of diners and accepted the drinks they offered, guess the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree!  She DID pay for what they had eaten at the end  of the evening but all their drinks had been at the expense of others.

I walked into the dining room as Mom was leaving, opening carrying two of my hand-carved wooden bowls that I had recently purchased from a local artist on the mainland.  She also had two of my hand-crafted place-mats that had been made at the workshop for the blind in Kingstown. When I took them away from her she insisted that she wanted them for souvenirs, and that her son had told her it was OK to take them.

Sheesh.  Moochers!  I didn’t let her keep either the bowls or the place-mats, if she wanted souvenirs she could go to town and buy them herself.  Enough was enough!