It’s that time of week when we answer the questions you’re to drunk or shy to ask…This question comes from Not Cutting My Hair For Him: I’m a pretty considerate bar patron. I tip, I say please and thank you. And I always go for the small table when I’m a small party. But, my party of two recently took a seat at a table for four in a bar that was completely empty. The waiter asked if we’d prefer a smaller table. I found it a bit ridiculous, but I moved. Should I have been asked? Was it my ponytail?It’s amazing how many uncomfortable situations people in the service industry create for no reason.Instead of being honest and straight with customers, servers sometimes passive aggressively shame you into a behavior or action, assuming that you’re aware of some procedural minutiae or protocol. None of us were born knowing it’s not cool to leave the one seat betweener at the bar, for example. (It’s not.) The problem with these servers is they forget their place, and their #1 job, which is TO MAKE PEOPLE COMFORTABLE. It’s polite to sit at a two top if you are two people, but restaurants need to seat two people at tables of four all of the time. In your empty bar, it hardly mattered. I don’t think it was your ponytail, just a server putting rules before comfort and being a jackass.I offer two solutions, the first (my favorite) is to respond with a simple “I would prefer not to,” a la “Bartelby the Scrivener.” Repeat, calmly, if necessary. Melville was right; repetition of this phrase incites madness. The second solution is to speak the fuck up. Always. In my not so humble opinion, customers often fail to be the captain of their own ship, the champion of their own good time. The best way to a good time is a straight line of questioning: “Is there a reason we can’t sit here?” You are forcing the server to say either, “Yes, there is,” or capitulate. Check and mate.Got a question for the bartender? Email me at mdutton@seattleweekly.com.