Saladgate - An Official Hands in the Air Boycott

We at Hands in the Air HQ like ourselves some take-out. We're busy people and at least two of us work late more often than not these days, so we partake in a fair bit of delivered food. And like everyone, we have our favorite haunts and eateries. But something has happened that has crossed one local restaurant off of our favorites list forever--in permanent marker--then tore up the list, burned it, ate it, shit it back out, peed on it and buried the ashes on each continent. This is the tale of Saladgate--behold and despair.

Jason at dinner. Not pictured: Salad.

It was down to Jason and myself this evening, because Jenni is working late--y'know, on the stroll. I decided to order from a local Brazilian place called Bossa Nova. I like it because it's named after my favorite button on a musical keyboard. I ordered an appetizer, a sandwich and some fries. I ordered Jason some pasta and a fateful dinner salad. I placed the order by phone and all of the items were read back to me. The food showed up about 45 minutes later and I paid the delivery guy--left him a good tip, too.

A couple of minutes later, I'm going through the bag with the food, and I notice there's no dinner salad. I tell Jason what's up and I call them, expecting that they'll send one out and Jason will just have to wait a little while to eat his leafy greens. I call, and my call gets handed to the manager. "All right," I think in that cocksure way I tend to--not really, I just wanted to use the word "cocksure." Anyway, the manager starts talking and informs me that I got one salad, and if I want another one, I need to pay for it. Fair enough, but that implies that I indeed got the ONE salad I ordered and, checking the receipt, was definitely charged $3.49 for. I inform the manager that he's misunderstanding me--I don't want an additional salad, I just want the one I ordered and was charged for.

He tells me to look at the receipt. Guessing his next question, I inform him that I was indeed charged for the veggie side-dish. But he KNOWS that. No, he's curious if there's an ink mark on the receipt over the salad entry. There is, just like there is for the other items I ordered. He then informs me that that is difinitive proof of some things. 1) I got the salad I ordered. Apparently by marking the receipt by each item, that magically, unequivocally forces the marked item to reside within the confines of the attached bag. 2) I'm a thieving liar who desparately wants to rip him off for $3.49-worth of dinner salad. And 3) If I want "another" salad, they'll have to charge me. Obviously, I've had enough of this guy's bullshit and I hang up on him. I tell Jason what's up and he tries to reason with them just as I did, but he got the same result.

Jason put those a-holes on notice over the phone that we would no longer be frequenting their establishment as we do not enjoy 1) getting charged for stuff we didn't get and 2) basically being told we're lying salad thieves. I'm not sure what kind of mocking, dickish retort that restaraunteur replied with, but I'm sure it would stifle in his throat knowing that we are not just boycotting on our behalf, no no, we're invoking a full-on Hands in the Air Official Boycott. If you live in the Los Angeles area and say you're a friend of HITA or freedom or democracy or salads, you will NOT order ANYTHING from Bossa Nova until Jason is given his salad. Until that day, we will be maintaining a solemn vigil in our sidebar, informing you, the decent, honest, hard-working, salad-eating people of the world how long it's taking for the REAL salad thieves to give us what is rightfully ours.


P.S. - I tried to leave feedback on their official webpage and got an error that wasn't even in English. I didn't even use profanity, the fuckers.