Jacki: Can you tell me if any of these salads is vegetarian?

Cafe Counter Girl: Ummm. This one has Chicken. And this one also has chicken. The waldorf doesn’t have any meat and the last one has lamb.

J: OK. Is the frittata vegetarian?

CCG: No. That has chicken in it.

J: What about the pasta?

CCG: That has bacon in the sauce.

J: What about the stir-fry special?

CCG: Ham.

******Hold music plays whilst J & CCG repeat the same convesation ad nauseum for everything else in the display case***********

J: What about the filo pasty things there?

CCG: Oh, yeah, they’re pumpkin and pine nuts.

J: I’ll have the filo and the waldorf salad please.

Seriously, you’d think that, after a few goes at this question a couple of things might happen….like a) Maybe her realising that I really only want to know whether it has meat or not, and I actually don’t care what kind of meat it is. Like I’m going to suddenly convert after 6 dishes with chicken and decide that actually it’s OK…I’ll have that thanks!!!! or b) maybe (and I know this is a bit of a stretch here) she could have volunteered the two things on the menu that were actually vegetarian. I thought I was reasonably clear about what I was after…

Sigh.

And I’m willing to bet everyone in the queue behind me was blaming the annoying vegetarian for being so difficult.