Tension At Culver's

A group of us were eating lunch at Culver’s after church, yesterday afternoon. 

Suddenly, we heard a commotion coming from the check-out counter. An irate customer was yelling and making a scene. The yelling continued. It was loud enough and angry enough that many of us customers in the seating area of the restaurant were looking around, whispering and wondering if this was possibly going to escalate into something more than just a verbal tirade.

Before long a police car pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and then another police car arrived, as well.

At a certain point the uncomfortable incident seemed to be over. Although I could not see the entire check-out counter area from my seat I’m fairly certain the tense encounter never advanced to any type of physical level. And, fortunately, the irate customer left without the police having to intervene.

A few moments later a very sweet young woman who works for the restaurant came around to our table with a handful of blue tokens.

She was smiling but she also seemed concerned and a bit unnerved. She said, “We are so sorry for the disturbance that happened. Please accept these tokens for a free scoop of ice cream with our apologies for the disruption in your dining experience.”

The folks from our group very quickly responded saying, “No, that’s alright. We understand things can happen. We’re fine.”

A couple of my friends attempted to put her at ease. We understood she was in no way at fault.

I said, “I’m not upset but I will take one of those tokens for the free ice cream, however.”

And everyone laughed. That broke the slight tension of the moment. And then a bunch of other folks took the tokens for free ice cream, too.

Hey, this is a pretty good rule of thumb: Even in a tense situation you should not turn down free ice cream.