11 February 2011

Takeout.

It’s been a few months since the events I am about to describe to you took place. I had no intention of waiting so long, it just sort of happened. But, I can guarantee you that it was a memorable enough night that I feel fairly confident relaying the details to you now…

Kelly, Georgiana and I were hanging out at the Brough’s house, aka my Aunt Michelle and Uncle Roger’s house. It was just before Thanksgiving and my cousin Ashley was home from college. It was getting to be around dinner time, so we were throwing around ideas of where to eat. Someone suggested Chinese Food. Typically, I am not a lover of Chinese food, however we talked about going to a place we’d been to before, and somehow in our clouded memory this place sounded super tasty to us all. I remembered it as being a bit of a hole in the wall, but sometimes with restaurants the hole in the walls equal deliciousness. Ha, not so young grasshopper.

We were a bit tired, so Ashley and I tossed out the idea of sending the guys out to pick it up. Kelly voted for eating at the restaurant, he said he didn’t want to miss out on the entertainment! Hmm… turns out his memory of the place was more accurate than the rest.

Thankfully we didn’t take time to doll ourselves up, trust me it wasn’t needed. We loaded up and headed on out. My cousin had never been there, so she was a bit surprised by the ghetto fabulous parking lot. Dark, gravel, behind the building, just not pretty. My aunt assured her that the parking lot was nothing compared to the interior.

You walk through what looks like a secret back entrance. You enter a long dark hallway, with no direction as to where to go, you simply just walk towards the light. The décor is red. Lots and lots of red. Some real classy mirrors with gold foil detail and some lanterns that could use a serious facelift. We were quickly greeted by the hostess. She has been the hostess my entire life. I am guessing she is around 92. I am not kidding. For over 20 years she has looked the same age, you know when someone reaches a certain age and he/she just kind of looks old, the same old. It’s like that.

Although the parking lot was packed we were sat right away. My aunt reminded me that there is a bar hidden somewhere in the establishment, must be a happening place because the dining room area seemed quite bare. Although, it is shaped much like a labyrinth, so it is likely people were hiding out in other rooms.

Our placemats had descriptions of animals assigned to each year. Like year of the pig etc. Along with descriptions came advice. For example, certain animals should not be in a relationship together. It explained that the years my grandparents were born should make them arch enemies and they should have nothing to do with each other… Hmm… I think our entire family could not be more thankful that they didn’t consult a placemat before entering into what has been a very happy marriage of over 55 years!! Maybe it is more of a Paula Abdul thing, you know “opposites attract.”

Next up was meeting our server. She was the main act. Yep, this experience was like attending dinner theatre. Throughout the course of all our interactions with her we were unable to decipher if a)she was chewing tobacco, b)sucking on candy, or c)playing with a tongue ring…who knows!?! As I am writing this, I realize I sound like I am just tearing her down. I do not mean it like that at all. The speech condition was not a natural thing, it would come and go and there was definitely some sort of outside element contributing to it…

Within a few minutes of sitting down, we all noticed a pesky fly buzzing around the table. Gross. Our server noticed it too, and quickly brought us the following:

What’s that you say? Is my Uncle Roger holding an electric fly swatter??? Yes, yes he is. Oh my word, I am not sure if this is a you had to be there moment, but I was almost in tears as my Uncle was handed this fly executor. What in the world!?! Our server said, “aren’t flies supposed to be hibernating right now?” No comment.

She walked away and brought us our bbq beef. The fly took a rest on one of the pieces. She carefully picked up the piece of meat, the fly flew away, my uncle smashed it (not with the extremely germy, nasty, who knows where this has been nasty fly swatter), and our server quickly returned with one new replacement piece of bbq beef, sitting on a giant platter, covered with a paper towel. From this point forward each of our dishes were brought out in such style. It was a take on room service, however I must say I much prefer the metal lid over the paper towel. By this point a few other tables were occupied, yet we always knew what food was ours, it would come gliding over covered in white and it was quite the sight.

Our server kept urging me to order something for Georgiana. At the time she was not even 6 months old, and yet repeatedly I was asked “are you at least going to let her try something?” My response only fanned the flame, “poor girl.” No offense restaurant, but I guarantee Georgie was not missing out. Somehow the food transformed and it was not at all what any of us remember it tasting like. The server mentioned that at her previous job she got in trouble for offering infants hard candy. But, she wasn’t a mom, so how should she know…. Oh dear. It made me wonder what was really going on when I received a choking call from that restaurant when I was a 9-1-1 operator. And, it leaves me to believe she was doing b)sucking on hard candy…

When she realized that Georgie was not going to get an egg roll, she brought her a takeout box. Here you go baby, play with this because your mean mommy won’t let you have candy or won tons. She didn’t say it, but her expression said it all. Georgie gave us all an equally descriptive expression, like what in the world am I supposed to do with this? Don’t worry, we (the adults) were all polite and accepted the box with a smile.

She also brought us our fortune cookies. Ashley’s had something to do with odd numbers. Which may sound lame, but it could not have been more ironic because Ashley is an even number person. She detests odd numbers like I detest mayo, basically something that makes you shiver with eww-ness. As we laughed about Ashley’s “fortune,” we couldn’t help but notice my uncle’s facial color was beginning to match the ever so subtle red décor… what did it say?
Oh, just simply that “your admirer will be revealing his true love for you, tomorrow.” Ha! I forgot to follow up with my uncle to see how is dirt bike ride with his best friend (Jon) went that day? I am sure it was unforgettable J Not to mention, they have matching bikes (got a great deal) and accidentally (totally did not shop together) bought the same helmets and riding boots. Please forgive me Uncle Roger, I couldn’t resist sharing those matchy matchy cute details J It just could not have been more perfect.

When we settled our bill, Georgie girl reminded us that it was her turn to eat. I thought about nursing her in the car (while parked not driving), but it was decided by all that it was too cold and too creepy to be out there, so I hid in the corner of our table/booth. It really would not have been that bad, I had my trusty hooter hider with me, which should have made it more comfortable. However, hooter hiders have a lovely (usually) feature that creates a little space for the mommy (me) to look down at the baby (Georgiana). This is normally a good thing. That night I discovered that it is not a good thing when your little one has excessive tooter-bugs. It creates a perfect tunnel right up mommy’s nostrils. Add two excited kicking feet under the hider, and you got yourself a little fan just further sending those sweet smells directly up my sniffer. On more than one occasion Kelly has said, “How can something so foul come out of something so sweet?” I am not exaggerating when I tell you I was gagging. I was. It wasn’t pretty.

We finished up, and as we were heading out, the cover of the People magazine in the waiting area caught our attention. My aunt joked that Ashley could take it and read the article, as a connoisseur of all things People ish Ashley had already read it. This spiraled into the please tell me that you do not read magazines sitting around in public places discussion…
My family looked at me like I was a little nuts. But, seriously think of all those germs! I mean sure, the group of friendly looking mullet donning males scattered around the waiting area probably have clean hands, but what about the people you haven’t seen? What about the flu germies on the magazines at the pediatrician’s office? Sure, they probably don’t compare to the germs on the electric fly swatter, which by the way she never collected, where was my uncle supposed to put it? Not on the table!!! He set it on the floor. But, I am willing to bet those magazines are about as clean as the lantern shades. Anyway, if anyone made it to the end of this truly novel length post; I thank you, and I hope you were not too bored, I wanted to post it to remember it, because it was a night that put a lot of smiles on our faces. And, please take this one little lesson with you,
Just Say No to Publicly Shared Magazines.
Ps - Have you ever seen a Clorox wipe after it was used to wipe down a library book, don’t get me started…

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Want to go for Chinese? I know a good restuarant! I still crack up everytime I think of that noght.
Love you guys, Aunt Michelle

Kari said...

Ha ha! I think I know what restaurant you're talking about!! If not, I know of another creepy one... ;-)

K. Amburgey Photography said...

red lotus?? If not then there is yet another restaurant just like it lol :)

Anonymous said...

Oh my! Yes, inquiring minds want to know - where was this?