I should have spoken out more loud. Instead, I approached her softly and even tried to make light of the situation.

 We were having lunch to reward ourselves as we normally do during "pay-day week" for all the troubles we put up with during the month from our work, the harassed frenetic pressure we feel as single mothers trying to balance work, family and friends in the rat race that is Johannesburg.

Our long lunch on Saturday was meant to soothe us as we caught up on a lot of gossip and updates between friends. My friend has some sort of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder I must admit, she's the type that always looks for faults where they don't exist. She can be a right royal pain in the ass the way she treats the hired help.

I have seen it in the way she treats her helper like a glorified slave by sending her on countless errands like a child when we are visiting her house, and how she takes umbrage with any little wrongs that waitrons can make. In fact, going out with her to a restaurant can quickly turn into an unpredictable battlefield as she takes on several unnecessary battles such as kicking up a storm about the lint on her glass. This time she was insisting that the lady serving us had an "ungrateful look about her".

I must admit that many a times I have been complicit in letting her get away with this bad treatment by keeping quiet and watching the explosive spectacle unfold in ugly scenes before my eyes. I would watch the poor waitrons reduced to a mass of nerves around her that would end up with them making mistakes.

I tried to tell her so many times about the revenge of the hired help who can spit on your food as part of their revenge for your bad treatment, but she remains unfazed. I even took her to watch the acclaimed movie The Help, where a racist madam was served her just desserts when one of the hired help served her faeces mixed with her favourite chocolate cake.

The "ungrateful look" episode was the last straw and I pointed out to her that although she is generally a happy person, she develops a curiously highly interrogative hard-to-please persona when we were at restaurants. It is an unattractive thing to watch and highly uncalled for.

As much as some waiters may have a chip on their shoulder for having to do the dirty job, arrogant customers are equally to blame for expecting waitrons to be slaves to their master tendencies. Just because you are paying the bill does not give you permission to lord over anyone.