Do You Mind? (also entitled: Boycott Dome Coffee)

Imagine this. My wife and I, together with a couple of her office friends, went out for coffee and drinks last Friday night. Eastwood was beginning to get boring, and we don't want to drive out all the way to Makati. I remembered that a highschool friend was having a gig at Whistestop, so why not Ortigas area instead?

When we got to Edsa Shang, we found out that there's a street party going on. So instead of Whistlestop, we decided to stay at Dome instead. The plan was girls were going to have coffee, the boys would be having beer. We were going to stay outside to enjoy the music, and it makes it so much easier if anybody wanted to go dancing.

Right across from Dome is International Sushi. Turns out that they have a beer promo going on: For three hundred pesos, you get a bucket of six beers plus two more bottles! Sulit! So we ordered beer from International Sushi and the girls ordered their lattes.

The beers arrived first. We were barely on our first couple of gulps from our bottles when I noticed a couple of the waiters from Dome inconspicuously eyeing us. Syempre deadma lang kami. What's a couple of beers?

Maya-maya eto na... One of the waiters approached me and said, "Sir, do you mind? We're also selling beer in Dome." Okay, but so what?

"So, what are we going to do now? Our beers are here, and besides, the ladies who are with us bought coffee from you." I said.

At this point, it's plain to see that the waiters didn't have a plan on resolving the problem when they brought it to our attention. Are they really serious in turning us away just because we bought beer from another place?

"We'll just cancel the coffee. We'll just transfer to another place instead."

I was waiting for a response from the waiter, but I didn't get any. I really don't know what he wanted us to do, and I was hoping he would have a suggestion, like letting us stay, perhaps, since the ladies already had their coffee ordered, and suggest that for the next round of beers to get it at Dome instead.

So we cancelled the coffee and transferred someplace else. It turns out that International Sushi was taking orders from almost the rest of the place, so for the remainder of our night, we gorged on cheap beer. The girls? They bought their coffee from Cinnzeo instead. It was just as good as Dome's, cheaper pa.

What's with Dome? Is it just me or is there really something wrong with the way I approached the problem? Will they really refuse to seat us just because we bought beer from another place? We were seated outside, mind you, and at no point did we bring the beer inside the shop.

Taking the argument a step further: What if, instead of beer, the boys bought coffee from Cinnzeo instead? Remember, the girls still ordered their coffee from Dome. Will Dome's waiters still accost us for that? Or what if we all bought coffee from Dome and cinnamon rolls from Cinnzeo? Is there still something wrong with that?

Whatever it is, I'm not going back to Dome in the near future. Ang labo nyo, Dome. And you know what I did after we transferred to another table? Nilagyan ko ng sumpa yung tables na inupuan namin. Sabi ko hindi magkakaron ng customer yang table na yan. True enough, even as we left Edsa Shang at 1 in the morning, Dome's tables in the front of the store remain unoccupied. Buti nga sa kanila.