Just to watch confused looks on customers faces.
“Our soup of the day is Chunky chicken noodle. Be careful. It’s very hot, and also very wet. You won’t be able to use a fork and knife on this soup. You’ll need a spoon for sure! Did you bring your favorite spoon? No? I’ll get you a spoon. It is a very basic spoon. Just made of metal. No gps navigation on this one though I’m afraid. You will have to navigate to your mouth manually.”
And just watch as their faces try to hold a poker face of normality. They don’t want to be rude, but also, this waiter is insane.
I would just think you’re trying to be funny. If you keep a deadpan face, you might succeed.
Yeah I’d just laugh like oh, this is clearly hilarious. Unambiguous. You would have to be way subtler to make me think my waiter had become dangerously unglued.
The key is to really make it sound like you’re telling a story, offhand jokes aren’t normally formatted like that.
"Be careful, a table accidentally lost their forks in the chicken, and I really used to like them… "
Do not give any details because in your mind it’s self explanatory what you mean. If they ask how that happened, that’s when you respond: “turns out soup is hot and wet.”
Exactly. You gesture at a truth that is out of reach, build and release tension in rising waves, foster an ambiguous apprehension of threat.
Horror is put to much rubbish by the fine arts, but crafting a real sense of horror is an exceedingly subtle art.