WTF?

Soojeong, her best friend, and I decided to eat at an Italian restaurant in a nice part of the city one evening last week. Soojeong had bought a coupon online for a set price and with that you were supposed to be able to get two pasta's, drink, etc., but this was not to be the case. Korean service is very similar to the Japanese in that you get good service and rarely do people make mistakes. When we got to the restaurant around 8:00, we found out the coupon was not good after 8:00. Good thing the guy taking our order was new and the manager cut him a break. We got our drinks and ordered our pastas. Quite a complicated ordeal. After about 15 minutes, one pasta dish came out and the three of us set to work eating it. One bowl down. We waited..waited..and waited some more, but our second bowl did not come. It was decided that we would ask the servers what was up, and come to find out they had forgotten about our order. The manager herself came and personally talked with Soojeong and her friend about the situation, and it was decided that before we left the manager would give us something for our troubles. Soojeong went to collect the prize while Goeun and I waited.

Soojeong came back a few minutes later and was carrying something in a bag. She wanted us to guess what we had received for all the trouble. I raked my brain for everything that American restaurants do..coupons, money back, merchandise... None of those were correct. What in the world could it be? The answer was.....TOOTHPASTE. I kid you not, toothpaste. A three pack of brand new toothpaste was our compensation. We all had a good laugh and joked about whether that came from the managers own grocery sack from her shopping earlier in the day. I told Joe (the guy who I am staying with) about this, and apparently he and Soojeong's sister have also received toothpaste as a prize somewhere. Strange isn't it?