Don't You Dare Look Down Upon Waiters

In our city fifty years ago the authorities decided to root out those people who sought to enjoy feelings of superiority which they didn't merit. Men and women who, unwisely, looked down upon those who 'served' - hotel-porters, taxi-drivers, housekeepers, barbers and the like.

Some, wisely, assumed that the hotel-porter was a student studying for his masters' in the evening and would later carry a degree more impressive than their own (if they had one). Wisely they saw service-providers as their equal. Some,wisely, perceived that the barber could entertain at the dinner-table whereas they and their spouses were never even invited. Others, and unfortunately they numbered many, unwisely perceived not.

The problem, it was realized, was in the subservient 'role.' There were occupations that just looked subservient. Porters didn't feel subservient to the guest - in fact they knew they were equal to any stranger be it mongrel or lord. If you lived in this country's society you would see that people here rarely do feel subservient. But what these occupations were doing looked like subservience. And regrettably that's what was leading those with delusions of importance into a heady sense of unmerited superiority.

The city's answer was radical - subservient transactions were banned. These work-positions suddenly disappeared. The aim was to starve-out those who sought and enjoyed unmerited superiority until they were forced to reveal themselves, as surely eventually and in some unguessed-at way they would.

For fifty years the injunction was in place; longer than anyone had anticipated at the beginning. But last week those who were being starved of their self-importance did finally show themselves. They came out of their houses in a rush and could be easily identified for half wore shoe-lifts (presumably to look down upon the missing porters the more easily) and half wore crowns. At the moment the authorities are rounding them up with nets and they will be removed from circulation. Today the ban was finally lifted. The waiter has returned and no longer need the residents of this city fetch their own food from the hatch.