The table that could not be enough

Watch a long table at a generous restaurant on the Khobar corniche and you can usually spot the one guest who will not enjoy it.

Nothing is wrong with the food. There is too much of it, if anything: more mezze than anyone can finish, grills arriving before the bread has gone. The guest is not hungry and not bothered by the bill. He is comparing.

The hummus was smoother somewhere else. The lamb was better last time. The table next door got their dessert first. The waiter brought the wrong water.

Plenty is a lovely thing. Comfort is a lovely thing. The trouble starts when plenty stops being a gift and becomes the floor. Once flawless is the baseline, nothing can ever rise above it, and every meal turns into a list of small shortfalls. You cannot be delighted by what you have already decided you were owed.

Then the grumbling begins, which is the second cost. It is louder than the first and it spreads. One guest finding fault at the head of the table changes how the whole table eats. People start looking for flaws so as not to seem easily pleased.

This happens to towns as well as tables. As a place grows richer, more of its people grow used to more, and the expectation hardens into entitlement. The irony is that the thing being grumbled at, the abundance, the choice, the kitchen open until late, was built by people who were grateful for much less and worked for it anyway.

Complaining does not make the lamb any better. It only makes the evening worse, for everyone sitting near it.