Guten appetit

CUTE WAITRESS: How do you say, in English, guten appetit?

ME: You don't. But thanks!

When I got to Europe and started eating, I noticed that all Europeans, as soon as your fork is within an inch of the first bite, are compelled to express their devout wish that you love every morsel of the food you're about to eat. At first this bugged the crap out of me; not because I didn't appreciate the sentiment, but more because a) I was usually starvin' like Marvin, and therefore easily annoyed, and b) we just don't do that in America, so I never knew what to say, and I'm so hungry and now I have to think up some sort of response so I don't look like some dolt from the back country of 'Merica.

Of course, in a restaurant in America, the waiter will often say Enjoy your meal after delivering it to your table, and okay, that may be a literal translation of guten appetit. But the meaning isn't the same. In my experience, the waiter has usually turned around and begun to walk away halfway through your, giving it as much impact as the ol' Thanks for shopping with us line, the literal translation of which is Some corporate shill wrote a memo that we should all say this line of BS and I have to say it because that schmuck takes pride in actually coming into the store just so he can fire the poor bastard who forgets to say it and feel good about putting his foot down and preserving the America is grandpa fought for in The Big War.

For six months I worked with the lovely and talented Marta from Espana. We ate together all the time. It was almost like some sort of creative eating disorder:

"I can't think of anything."
"Me neither."
"We're stuck."
"Yes."
"Let's get something to eat."
"Cool."

We got stuck a lot. It's amazing we don't weigh 400 kilos each. But anyway, she always said guten appetit and for the first five months I simply could not think of a good response to this. Thanks! is so one sided, You too! is just too goofy. But I've decided to let go and conform. If you're all seated at the table and one of your fellow eaters says it, the proper thing to do is to repeat it back. When the cute waitress here at Cafe Mango says it, I'm just gonna say thanks. When in Rome...