The following is part of a serialized story, Everyone Thinks I Dream of Chocolate. You can find the first chapter here.
Dick and Lou did not care for Yelp. The one time I brought it up, they went on a 2-minute rant about how everyone on Yelp was an asshole. I was curious so I planned to check out their reviews on my lunch break but Dick beat me to it as if he knew I was going to check anyway.
“See this one is going on about how I yelled at them.” He let out a bellowing laugh. “I remember that day. He was an asshole.”
“What happened?”
“He kept telling me that I should just leave the plastic spoons out on the counter.”
Most of the reviews were nice. They talked about how much they loved our chocolates and how important they are to the local community. The few that brought the score down to 4.5 stars talked about how rude the “male owner” was to customers, and how he had yelled at them.
Having worked there for as long as I did, I found that this yelling was usually warranted. People are used to being pampered to their every whim in the service industry, even if they treat the workers like trash.
Dick didn’t take any of that. He was willing to give it right back to you. Usually, Dick didn’t really care that someone wrote something about him on Yelp. In fact, I’m sure that if it wasn’t for Lou, Dick would be even more unhinged.
Still, I didn’t have the same disdain for it until one day, a couple walked in. They were both skinny. Their faces were spent, drained. I could see lines carved into them like the cracks in a rock wall. From what? I didn’t know. It could have been drugs but I found stress can do just as much damage to a person’s body.
Oh, and they had a dog. He was a yapper, too. Not a barker. A yapper. One is scary. The other is annoying. You can guess which one I hate more. I’m already someone who doesn’t want to raise a child, let alone a pet. This didn’t make me want to change my mind. Yap Yap Yap. Every sound coming out of it made me think it looked more and more like a football.
“Sorry, no dogs,” Dick said.
The man said something neither of us could hear very well. The dog’s yapping distorted his words into a high-pitched nothing.
“State laws say any place that serves food can’t have dogs in the establishment.”
The man pointed a finger at us and said (or at least I think he said over the yapping),
“I am a veteran. This is my service dog. How dare you discriminate against me. Wait till I get more lawyer on the phone.”
The couple left.
“What did he say?” Dick asked.
“He said something about a service dog?”
“Oh. Well if that’s a service dog they can come in.”
Service dogs fall under a special classification. They get special permission to enter establishments because they aid disabled people to navigate the world. Their special training kicks in when their vest is put on them. A properly trained service dog might be a wild animal one minute and a professional the second they get their vest on.
I went to go tell them that they were fine to come in but they were already out the Mill door. Dick and I looked at each other. We shrugged then went back to work.
Several hours later, Lou comes in from running errands and gives both of us a look. It is the same one a mother gives you when you fucked up. Dick and I looked at each other knowing we were fucked. The look on his face told me he had no idea why and I’m pretty sure I had the same face, too.
“What?” Dick said.
“Have you seen our Yelp page?”
“Why the heck would I check the Yelp page? It’s not social media.”
“Did you kick a couple out today because of a dog?”
The realization hit both of us. We explained to her what actually happened.
“Now, they want to sue us. And report us to the county.”
Lou spent the rest of the day on the phone trying to talk to the couple and apologize. Dick went on the phone for a bit and explained what happened from his perspective and apologized. He seemed genuine about it. The second he got off the phone, however, he was spitting curses into the air.
The next day, he was still sulking about it.
“You know that by law, establishments can’t ask someone with a service dog for any form of identification? Plus, you can buy those vests anywhere for $20.”
Later that night, I was talking to Chrissy about it.
“You know, I don’t think that dog was an actual service animal.”
“What do you mean?” I said as I sipped on my miso soup.
“I mean, with all of Dick’s complaints, he might be right. Didn’t you say that the dog was barking a lot?”
“Yapping.”
“Well, either way, service dogs aren’t supposed to do that.”
To this day, that Yelp review is still on our page. A small smudge in a series of small smudges among a tapestry of otherwise glowing reviews. Still, I wonder if that veteran is still out there. Dick has a theory that the guy is a scammer, going around trying to incite lawsuits. Apparently, he did some digging and this is not the guy’s first rodeo.
What I piece of shit. I bet he isn’t even a real veteran.
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To Be Continued…
Danger Wonka 