A while back myself and Mrs. Rumm brought our two mothers to dinner in a nice, remote, quiet restaurant. It was a quite-stylish place, in an old-fashioned kind of way.

My mother doesn’t drink a lot, but that night she had a few glasses of wine.

Our waiter was a pleasant, pasty-faced, rubber-nosed ‘humble but snobbish’ type. He looked like Rowan Atkinson. Every time he came to our table my mother would start giggling quietly.

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He became increasingly curious about her, pausing mid-sentence with a questioning rictus smile on his face, to hear if she had anything to say. She couldn’t say anything she was holding back so much laughter, just nodding to agree with whatever excuses/ distractions we were making.

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Before we finished our meal, he returned and asked if everything was to our satisfaction. Again, my mother began giggling and this time it was obvious she was laughing at him. The rest of us were embarrassed.
I said “she’s not used to wine”.

He smiled and bowed his head and said “that’s quite alright I get that all the time.”

Then as he was reversing away, my dearest momma raised a finger in his direction and screamed “he’s like… MR. BEAN!” at the top of her wailing voice. We all broke out laughing even as I was dying from embarrassment.

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The food was lovely, but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

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