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In Johnny and the Bomb (chapter 8) Terry Pratchett writes this:

Sir John sat down heavily in a seat, motioned them to sit down as well, and then did the second-worst thing anyone could do in a fast-food restaurant.

He snapped his fingers at a waitress.

All the staff were watching them anxiously.

‘Young lady,’ said Sir John, wheezing slightly, ‘these people will have whatever they want. I will have a glass of water. Thank you.’

‘Yes, Sir John,’ said the waitress, and hurried away.

‘You're not s'posed to do that,’ said Bigmac hoarsely. ‘You're s'posed to queue up.’

‘No, you're supposed to queue up,’ said Sir John. ‘I don't have to.’

We learn that Sir John gets away with this because he's the billionaire owner of the entire burger franchise.

But I feel like I'm missing a joke here. Perhaps I'm bad at British humour. What's the worst thing anyone could do in a fast-food restaurant, the single thing that's worse than snapping your fingers?

I looked in the Annotated Pratchett File, but this joke isn't explained.

Stormblessed
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b_jonas
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    #1 is allowing your kids to run around – Valorum Apr 18 '17 at 23:10
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    I suspect Pratchett is allowing you to imagine for yourself what the very first thing might be. – DJClayworth Apr 19 '17 at 01:43
  • The worst thing probably resulted in the Noodle incident (Warning: tvtropes) – Zommuter Apr 19 '17 at 12:01
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    Is there some British meaning for "fast food restaurant" that includes wait staff? Cause there's never a waitress in an American fast food restaurant. Perhaps it's meant to be what we would call a diner. – Todd Wilcox Apr 19 '17 at 13:35
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    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Null Apr 19 '17 at 15:34
  • @ToddWilcox - I think Wimpy has waiting staff, but finding a Wimpy restaurant is near impossible. As for the worst thing that anyone can do - surely relieving yourself in the deep fat fryer has to be up there? – Darren Bartrup-Cook Apr 19 '17 at 16:17
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    @DarrenBartrup-Cook - By waitress, he presumably means 'server'. – Valorum Apr 19 '17 at 16:50
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    @ToddWilcox - at least one fast food chain here in the US now brings your food to your table... ordering is still done by waiting in line at teh counter... To keep this comment on topic, I guess the worst thing you could do would be to order and then actually eat a sausage-inna-bun – ivanivan Apr 19 '17 at 19:38
  • @Todd Wilcox there aren't waitresses, i think it means someone who works behind the till or something – Melkor Apr 19 '17 at 20:17
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    This is the second-best question ever asked on stackexchange. – David Schwartz Apr 19 '17 at 20:38
  • The worst thing you can do is order #7 on the menu. – Hot Licks Apr 20 '17 at 00:07
  • @DavidSchwartz Then what's the best- wait a minute! – Zommuter Apr 20 '17 at 05:51
  • @Valorum Yes, that's what I took it to be - waiting staff who come to your table with little notebooks and smile sweetly when your child puts ice-cream in their pocket. – Darren Bartrup-Cook Apr 20 '17 at 07:49
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    @DarrenBartrup-Cook - Hehe. Someone's been watching Terminator, I see :-) – Valorum Apr 20 '17 at 08:12
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    Anybody who thinks this is actually the second worst thing you can can do in a fast food restaurant is showing a distinct lack of imagination. Once I consider the vast array of options involving bodily fluids and fecal matter this would slip rapidly down my list. – Jodrell Apr 20 '17 at 11:28
  • Jumping the queue is his terrible crime, but the "second worst" thing is just a fun little wink to the audience to imagine what the first worst thing might be. It's very similar to the joke frequently used by Get Smart: "That's the second biggest x I've ever seen!" – Django Reinhardt Apr 20 '17 at 15:41
  • @DjangoReinhardt "That just happens to be my third favourite thing in the universe." -- Michael Garibaldi. – Rand al'Thor Apr 21 '17 at 11:44
  • #1 having worked in one as a student, I would suggest that it isnt jumping the queue (annoying but doesn't affect the restaurant), it is bringing in your own food and drink whilst taking advantage of the facilities. Believe me, people do come in, grab condiments, use the bathroom, sit at a table and eat their own pack up, then leave. Don't buy a thing. – Applefanboy Apr 26 '17 at 08:25

6 Answers6

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I think you've answered your own question. Snapping your fingers at a waitress is very nearly the height of bad manners but jumping the queue is quite literally the worst thing that anyone can do and something that deserves its own circle in hell.

‘You're not s'posed to do that,’ said Bigmac hoarsely. ‘You're s'posed to queue up.’

‘No, you're supposed to queue up,’ said Sir John. ‘I don't have to.’

Per WATCHING THE ENGLISH, The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox

But calling out to him is not permitted, and almost all other obvious means of attracting attention, such as tapping coins on the counter, snapping fingers or waving are equally frowned upon.

and

that there is a special code of etiquette governing the behaviour and speech of pub ‘regulars’ (regular customers of a particular pub), which, among other privileges, allows them to break the pantomime rule. The special code does not, however, allow them to jump the invisible queue – as this would violate the over-riding English rule about queuing, itself a subsidiary, it would seem, of a more general rule of Englishness about ‘fairness’

enter image description here

Valorum
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  • The first quote, about attracting attention, doesn't seem to be relevant here. It's talking about attracting the attention of waiters going around in a pub, so the waiter goes to the table. I think that doesn't apply to fast-food restaurants, where there are no waiters, and the patrons must queue at the cashiers to get served. Or so I think… but maybe fast-food restaurants work differently in Britain. – b_jonas Apr 18 '17 at 23:27
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    @b_jonas - No. They work exactly the same. He's sat down to be served in a self-service restaurant, thereby jumping the queue. He's then clicked his fingers at a server. Both of these are mortal sins in British dining society. – Valorum Apr 18 '17 at 23:28
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    @b_jonas For what it's worth, British pubs don't have table service, at least for placing orders. They'll bring your food to your table. The quote is about people waiting at the bar to be served, and establishing your place in the bartender's mental queue. – Simon Fraser Apr 19 '17 at 10:32
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    Awesome pic. I think its in Canto XXXIV where Dante talks about queue jumpers: "At every mouth he [Satan] with his teeth was crunching // A line cutter, in the manner of a brake [a flax crushing machine], // So that he all of them tormented thus." – kingledion Apr 19 '17 at 11:56
  • It's hard to agree with the assertion that jumping a queue is "quite literally the worst thing that anyone can do" when Arab terrorists have detonated a nail bomb in a crowded pizza restaurant. – user14111 Apr 19 '17 at 12:14
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    Using hyperbole is a million times worse ;) – Simon Fraser Apr 19 '17 at 12:16
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    @User14111 - I may have exaggerated slightly. – Valorum Apr 19 '17 at 12:39
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    I thought that people who talk in cinemas got their own special level of hell. – Scott M Apr 19 '17 at 14:43
  • @ScottM That's theatres for you; people who go to cinemas share the same hell though :) – Gallifreyan Apr 19 '17 at 18:52
  • @user14111 You're obviously not familiar with British culture. – TheLethalCarrot Apr 11 '18 at 08:05
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Maybe I've read too much Pratchett and Adams in my life, but to me seems simply one of their typical jokes.

More or less every book ever written has some instance of "the best thing", "the worst thing", etc. (just think that Apple entire advertising is based on that trope), here the joke is that he did "the second worst". It is a joke on the constant abuse of the same trope over and over again in literature, and it is something really typical for Pratchett.

Stormblessed
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motoDrizzt
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    Similar to the line from the Monkey Island series, "That's the second biggest monkey head I've ever seen!" It subverts expectations, and makes you imagine what could hold the top spot. – Nuclear Hoagie Apr 19 '17 at 19:04
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    Douglas Adams, another fine British humor writer, would use constructs like this (3rd best, 4th worst) to give just that level of surreal absurdity that made his books justly famous. – Walter Apr 20 '17 at 20:36
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Eat.

Not in my opinion, but I get the feeling some people would say the worst thing you can do in a fast-food restaurant is to eat. Notice he only gets a glass of water for himself, and doesn't touch the sandwich he orders.

‘You haven't touched your One with Everything,’ said Johnny, watching him.

‘Oh, I asked for it just to make a point,’ said Wobbler. ‘I'm not allowed to eat them. Good heavens. I have a diet. No sodium, no cholesterol, low starch, no sugar.’ He sighed. ‘Even a glass of water is probably too exciting.’

The other suggestion of cutting the line is a good interpretation but in my opinion it's bundled together with his original finger snapping. That is to say, sitting down, summoning an employee, ordering like it was a full-service restaurant and there by cutting of everyone else waiting are all different parts of one rude behavior.

b_jonas
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Segfault
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3

If you were to ask this question in Chicago, the answer you'd get 99 times out of a 100 would be "put ketchup on your hotdog."

Everyone has their "this is the worst thing you can do in a restaurant" and to suggest that something else is, in fact, the worst thing is to invite argument and dissent, distracting from the point that the author is trying to drive home. Whether it's the worst thing or only the second worst isn't the issue, it's just how horrible of a thing to do this is that is being pointed out.

Aside from leaving the reader to imagine for his or herself what the number one most important thing to do is, this is also a bit of a trope in comedy. This is a Google search for "second worst thing" and you can see that the results are many and quite varying in nature, but they all do have a bit of a common theme amongst them. It's a mix of dry humor and witticism. It's somewhat thinking outside the box (debatable how much so since it is somewhat of "a thing" to use this expression), and is kind of funny.

Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
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    Except that this is set in England and is intended for an English audience. – Valorum Apr 20 '17 at 06:08
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    @Valorum He's not suggesting that Pratchett was concerned with ketchup. He's saying that deciding what the worst thing is should be left to the reader. – Ben Miller Apr 20 '17 at 17:20
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Yes, an exercise left to the reader. In many American fast-food establishments, the staff will tell you that the worst thing is using the restroom without buying anything. Some customers will say changing a baby's diaper on one of the tables. Pratchett likely had other answers in mind.

Asa Guest
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Using 'the second worst thing' is a literary trick used to elicit questions such as yours, i.e. 'what is the worst thing?'

By the way, Simon Fraser, we do have table service. I'm not entirely sure what restaurant you visited.

Neo Darwin
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DJC
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