Did I Ask for English Breakfast Tea?

It is noon -- frustrating for me because I thought it was 1:00.  I forgot that the clock in my Jeep was on CDST.   Unfortunately that caused me to be an hour early for a 1:00 o'clock class, and miss having lunch with a paralegal friend.  Here I am in one of Houston's quasi-ritzy hotels in the heart of the Galleria, a place I'd rather not come within two miles of unless it is 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.   At that time I am guaranteed a choice of lanes in which to drive, and little to no other street traffic.  

After self-parking and noting the rates and payment terms and procedure (as if it matters; it's either valet or self-park), I enter the hotel and find the exact location of my "class" and head for the restaurant, where I am seated at a table for four, although I am obviously alone and a table for two is just to my left.

I am handed a menu.   A young woman of the wait staff comes by and asks about my drink preference.  I ask for hot tea with honey and lemon.   She returns with a cup of hot water on a saucer bearing a wrapped, wrinkled tea bag that looks as if it is left over from the morning breakfast crowd.  Since the bag was sealed I didn't protest (although I was miffed about the tea being English Breakfast).   No honey.  No lemon.  From the menu I choose a grilled chicken sandwich.  It comes with lettuce, tomato, provolone and some kind of fussily-named mayo on a French baguette.  I opted for wheat bread and mayo on the side.   

Here comes my sandwich, cut on the diagonal.  Toasted, crumbling wheat bread tossed aside in favor of eating chicken, lettuce and tomato with knife and fork.  No mayo on the side.  Back comes young woman who evidently cares not one whit whether I get what I ask for, to ask if everything is alright.   She did ask if I wanted more tea, to which I asked if there was anything else available other than English Breakfast.  She rattled off several flavors, and I settled on green.  (I drink a lot of green tea, not for the taste, but because it's supposed to have stuff my body needs.)   Annoyed, I grumbled in my mind about her failure to offer me a variety of teas in the first place, but simultaneously kicked myself for not asking.  I also asked that she bring the mayo which I requested on the side.  Bearing an expression of annoyance, she mutters a mono-syllabic oh in response.

I finish the other half of my sandwich as a sandwich, smattering on a tiny bit of the unimpressive but fussily-named mayo.   Washing it down with my tea (sorry, I do not sip), I tender payment for the unimpressive fare and begrudgingly leave an undeserved tip.  

That's one of the problems with being a member of the darker nation:  even if  you get an old, wrinkled English Breakfast tea bag, moderately acceptable food and lousy service, you'd better leave that tip; otherwise you're just pegged as another cheap you-know-what.