headless compound or what?

This has to be shared. I had lunch with a number of old linguist buddies this week in Tucson. One of them, a vegetarian, had ordered the shrimp and avocado salad, hold the shrimp. The venue was counter service: pay the cashier, then take your number and display it to ensure delivery to your table. We all pretty well went Dutch so that there was a number displayed for each of us on the table. After several minutes (during which my own comical meal arrived) the waitress sheepishly wandered by, saying to us, "did somebody here order a shrimp salad?" Nobody said anything, because nobody was expecting shrimp. As she walked away I thought of the special order (shrimp and avocado, hold the shrimp) and piped up, "is there shrimp in it?" And she said, relieved, "No", and placed it on the table.

[update, 6/6/06: despite the title of this post, shrimp salad in this story is not actually a headless compound.]