Eating out at a restaurant can be tricky business. Many of the bad things that might happen are purely accidental. They are unavoidable, random surprises, like when a waitress trips and drops a tray of hot tamales on your head, or the woman in the booth behind you chokes on a fish bone, or you discover a hair clip in your spaghetti. However, other potential incidents might be anticipated, or at least better understood, with some insight as to what really goes on behind the scenes in places like Applebees, Olive Garden, Outback, and other popular restaurants.

The hostess or host is eager to seat you. Their job is to lead you, no matter how many empty tables are available, to the most crowded area. There you are to be plopped between two parties. Seated at an L-shaped in the corner is an extended family of fourteen, three of whom are screaming toddlers. Four adults intermittently shush and scold them, taking turns crawling under the table to retrieve dropped items, such as dolls, forks, pieces of clothing, half eaten dog biscuits and rainbow colored cell phones. The teenagers poke relentlessly, deliriously at their phones until the food arrives, which seems to annoy them.

On the other side is a smaller group celebrating the birthday of someone who appears to be a centenarian wearing a hearing aid the size of a giant moth. There is quite a bit of hollering and finger pointing at the menu by the group as the waitress tries to take food orders. Here’s part of the exchange:

Waitress (to centenarian): “What would you like to drink?”

Centenarian: “What?”

Waitress, gesturing as if tipping a glass to her lips: “Drink?”

Centenarian: “No mustard!”

To avoid this scenario, my advice is to stand your ground at the hostess’s station, and if she pressures you, threaten to tell the manager that she called you a priggish snob. But I should note that the hostess is probably not a mean person. She’s just following restaurant policy, which assumes waiters hate walking any farther than absolutely necessary, and that customers like to be herded into confined, noisy areas.

Speaking of waiters, they are generally very friendly and careful to get your order right. At least in the beginning. After drinks and food are delivered, they’ll say something like, “Is everything great? Perfect!” Then they’ll go on break for about an hour. Or, in other cases, like when a platoon of cotton tops on a bus trip from Texas have launched an invasion into the restaurant, the waiters are suddenly quick on the draw. They’ll slip you the bill while you’re still chewing, saying “No rush. Take your time.” This is then repeated every 30 seconds until you finally realize it’s time to get out of Dodge.

When things get super busy, you might spot a manager emerging from a secret room somewhere in the back. They’ll pour on the charm as they gauge the customers’ satisfaction, and occasionally they’ll pretend to help out by delivering a side salad or order of fries. The hardest part is when they have to make a deal with a dissatisfied customer. For example: customer complains that food took too long, or fries were cold, or sauce was too spicy. Manager considers two options: pour a half empty glass of beer on customer’s head, or give ’em a free dessert.

It is important to know that one of the most hot blooded feuds in the history of mankind – more than the Hatfields and McCoys, Tupac and Biggie, or Fudd and Bugs – is between waitresses and cooks, who hate each other unconditionally. Cooks are moody people, often very unsociable and resentful toward underappreciative customers. They are stuck for long shifts in superhot kitchens. They hiss and growl at dumb waiters who can’t spell, or grab the wrong plate, or bring back food to be recooked. And the waiters are tired of having to be nice all the time, even to rotten customers. So they wish for bad things to happen to the cooks, like getting deep fried in a giant tub of boiling grease.

Almost all restaurants like to serve big portions. There is no negotiating here. Recently, I was not all that hungry, so I asked my waiter if she could tell the cook to choose a small fish to be fried. She told me that all the fish all come in the same size. That makes me wonder…

The chicken cuts are especially humungous, so big I’ve come to believe it’s not chicken, but rather emu. It all goes to show that restaurants can ill afford customers complaining about scant portions. They know that most Americans are Texans at heart, and they want things big, bigger, and biggest.

Peter Alan Howard is the author of Rosebud Dreamworld, a novel for young and old adults.