I like restaurant booths made of quilted vinyl, either red in the diner style or darker, like in a steakhouse. I like when the vinyl has a rip or two that's been fixed with electrical tape, and when the booths are divided by pointless miniature wooden balustrades, as if that somehow provides extra privacy from adjacent diners. I like to be the first person in my party to reach the table. For one thing I enjoy sliding in, sliding in is one of the best parts of the booth-dining experience. I like making the person next to me get up when I need to use the restroom, what a perfectly pleasurable confirmation of one's existence that is, especially when I say "excuse me" and they say "no problem." It's all I can do to contain my delight at such moments. Another reason I like to be first is that I feel foolish being part of a procession led by a hostess holding a stack of menus into a restaurant full of people, who invariably glance up. How I hate when they glance up, I am moved to violence when I see seated patrons scrutinize my party as we walk past. I hate noticing it, it's bad enough I am an element in that ridiculous parade, implicated in that contemptible public exposure. When you walk into a restaurant with a few friends you wait for a while in the entrance and everything's fine, and then you're led to your table and your friends suddenly all look different, altogether shabby and mysteriously deficient, a conga line of glaring personal imperfections in dress and deportment and even hygiene, a glum chain of shambling hoboes. The haircut of the friend walking in front of you suddenly looks deranged and asymmetrical, you notice a light dusting of dandruff on his shoulders, the clinging sour odor of cigarette smoke, his shoes suddenly strike you as filthy and embarrassing, ripe for condemnation by observant strangers.

When it's time to order I can't stand it when someone says "I think I'll go ahead and have the..." I loathe this extraneous preface, it makes my face burn with shame and disgust to hear all those extra words that serve no purpose. I hate when one person at my table stares at the menu in blind panic and finally announces to the waiter that he needs more time, and there's that slightly embarrassed pall that envelops us, a cloud of impatience and scorn. What everyone is thinking is, Look here, it's all crap food, this is a cheap crap restaurant because we're a bunch of losers who will never know the civilized pleasures of truly fine dining, so just order whatever because really what does it matter? What does it matter?