The Electric Café (Part 1)

The wife and I are always on the lookout for new cafés and restaurants to hang out in, so when we spotted a new one on the corner of A Street and B Street, we decided to give it a try. What attracted us --- like a couple of moths, I should add --- was the huge signboard brought to life in psychedelic neon with the words The Electric Café emblazoned across it. As they say, the signboard itself was worth the price of admission.

It was a Wednesday night, which probably explained the sparseness of the café. Soon as we sat down, an impeccably-dressed waiter came over and handed us the menus before rattling off the specials of the day. Then he gave us several minutes to pore over the leather-bound menu. Once we've decided, the wife and I started chatting about something that I couldn't remember now. And whilst chatting, I noticed a sort of plastic cup on the table. It was more like a bowl actually, but placed upside down. The bowl was transparent, and hence we could see that it was actually placed over a button that was built into the table itself. Ah, so we got it. It wasn't a bowl but actually a cover placed over the button to prevent someone from accidentally pressing it.

How strange we both had thought, for what purpose could that little implement serve?

By then the waiter had returned, and as I recited the orders to him, I noticed something equally unusual, if not more so, than the button on the table. The waiter, whose name I believe is Wan, had a strapped-on collar around his neck. It looked more like a sort of bracelet than a collar, and there was a tiny blinking light on it. I had wanted to ask him what it was, but seeing how he was so earnest and professional, I didn't. As we waited for our food and drinks to arrive, we looked around the café and noticed that every table was equipped with an identical button, each covered by that tiny dome of transparent plastic.