In over 2.5 years of sharing a tiny house with one bathroom, a loud furnace, two old cats, countless spiders, and not one inch of extra space, my gal and I have done very well together. As far as I can tell, we have not even had a real argument yet. We are not old people, but, we are not kids either. I have been around long enough though, to recognise and appreciate a celestial gift when I see one. Oh, yeah....its a soul mate thing.
Okay, so we get along...and no fighting. Once in a while however, we do find ourselves in a social situation that forces us to examine and reflect on a completely different (almost foreign) system of values coming from our partner. Not being Jewish, neither one of us would have ever guessed that a pork product could be the fuel to ignite an interesting, yet, inconsequential clash of philosophies.
One frosty evening during the second week of March('08), my fiance (Angelina) and I didn't feel like cooking and decided to head to Chili's for dinner. I was home rehabbing at the time following hip replacement surgery which had occurred just three weeks earlier. My newly developed lack of mobility gave me the perfect excuse to hang out in my recliner and take in lots of television. My daily T.V. routine included The History Channel, Spike TVs "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge"(MXC), The Food Network, and plenty of commercials featuring Chili's new "Smokehouse Bacon Burgers." The add boasted of "The thickest bacon you have ever seen!" They say that right in the commercial! Just look at the picture up there. Nothing but lean, crisp, maple-cured & smoked heavenly deliciousness. I mean look at it! And all up on top of a cheese burger even? Damn! Is it even legal to use all of those divine ingredients in one culinary application without getting into trouble? I was ready to get out of the house for a spell anyway, and I was definitely pumped for one of those burgers. Although I had never been to Chili's before, Angelina claimed to be a Chili's pro. Based on my observations of her enthusiastic behavior following each and every Chili's add......in my mind, satisfaction was a sure thing.
Hindsight: I should have remembered that my partner was a thin person who had the tendency to be more of a nibbler. She could watch a Chili's commercial and envision her own future satisfaction based in her limited nutritional needs. Her meal of three nacho chips and a little melted cheese would be realized, while my vision of bacon- induced gratification would remain a little out of focus.
Roughly 17.92 miles and 27 minutes later, we were stepping out of the car at Chili's. The parking lot was only about half full. This got me a even more excited because.........Whoo-hoo, no waiting! The irregular bands of slick ice that stretched across the lot must have formed when the snow-melt from earlier that day had refrozen after sunset. It made me think of my first post op checkup a week earlier and how my surgeon's assistant practitioner had specifically advised me to avoid things like icy parking lots. She even refused to give me clearance to walk 20 steps to the end of my driveway to get the mail. Her propaganda continued as she went on to explain how several of their orthopedic patients wiped out on ice that winter and had to be re hospitalized. Well!! I was not going to be like any of those chumps. They were probably old, or stupid, or something. I had already been secretly getting the mail for a week and managed to survive the ordeal. What could possibly go wrong if I was really careful? Angelina may have offered to drop me at the front door of the restaurant, I can't remember. No matter. I would have refused the offer anyway. It was bad enough already that I had to make my first public appearance using a borrowed loan closet cane. I certainly was not being dropped off like a pampered lady, or some dandy worried about new shoes and slacks. I was goin' in like a man.
In spite of all the obstacles (black ice, common sense, good medical advice), we made it inside without incident. We were led to what must have been the best seats in the restaurant because of how close they were to the kitchen. "The food arrives to your table just a little fresher when you are this close to the stove", I thought. And all of that annoying chit-chat from the other patrons? Not a problem tonight. The chorus of clanging spatulas, a sizzling deep-fat fryer, and the occasional dish hitting the kitchen floor took care of those jokers. It was a little like wearing ear buds... and not the uncomfortable ones either. Even the old man who had been eye-balling me from across the isle since we walked in was of little concern to me. He may have been wondering if we were local celebrities (considering our proximity to the kitchen), or, he might have been judging me based on the shabby condition of my borrowed cane. Either way, I would deal with him only if I had to. Right now, I was focusing on the positive...I was on a date with the woman of my dreams, and soon I would be experiencing the "thickest bacon you have ever seen" on top of a delicious cheeseburger.
Our server was a pleasant, seemingly competent young woman who could have been a college student, a single mother, a prostitute moonlighting as a waitress, or all of the above. I didn't really care. She seemed nice, and she was taking our order. Angelina went for the "Classic Nachos"(shocking), and I ordered the cheeseburger featuring the "thickest bacon you have ever seen." We thought we would start off with an appetizer, and decided to go with the "Awesome Blossom," which is a battered, deep-fried onion that, in its original form, must be about the size of a regulation softball.
It looked delicious on the menu and seemed like a good idea when we were hungry, but quickly lost it's appeal after about the third or fourth bite. We picked away at the crispy outside layer of our appetizer until our entrees arrived. We had completely lost interest in the onion at this point anyway, which now more resembled a fried monkey head picked over by buzzards.Angelina's plate of nachos looked pretty good sitting there in front of her. She smiled pleasantly and kind of had the look of an innocent child who was just about to get away with doing something a little naughty. She did once write to me before we met, that,"The guilty pleasures are the best kind." I agree with her, as long as one of her guilty pleasures includes me somehow. There would be no shame in coming in third to pizza and nachos. Besides, how could I be jealous when I was about to make a bacon burger my bitch right in front of her? Oh, yeah... My burger! Anyway, there it was... right in front of me! Uh.........hmmm... Wait a minute.... I think something sucks! ....."Oh, waitress?"
The first thing I noticed about my burger with "the thickest bacon you have ever seen", was the bacon. Where the hell was it? There must have been a mistake with my order. I did not see two thick slices in criss-cross fashion atop my burger. Oh, yeah sure..there was bacon alright. There were three or four curled remnants of the thinnest, slimiest, fattiest, saddest excuse for bacon I had ever seen. In fact it looked like the undercooked ends of bacon strips that people just throw away because they're too gross to eat. This was not the bacon of legend! This was not the bacon that inspired a recovering hip replacement patient to risk busting his ass in an icy parking lot 20 miles away from his prescription recliner! If I was interested in bacon like that, I would have just picked through the dumpster at Denny's. At least Denny's was closer to my house.
Angelina was enjoying her first nacho chip....she looked cute as a little peanut... just sittin' there smiling calmly... lovin' life... nibblin' on her little nacho chip..... nibblin'..... smilin'. God, I love this woman...
......Fucking, Chili's!
I remained composed on the outside, but, on the inside I was starting to feel just a little more anxious than usual. I though it might be a good idea however, to compare notes with our server before jumping to any harsh conclusions regarding my order. Besides, these people work real hard at low-paying, thankless jobs and.......blah, blah, blah...and so on. That doesn't fix my bacon dilemma now, does it? Anyway, I finally got our server's attention. Before I could say anything, she was already with the, "How is everything?" routine. I pointed at my plate and politely inquired, "Does this bacon look right to you?" She inspected the cheeseburger and said, "No it doesn't." Then she continued with the "Hey, let me go check on that for you" business, and took my burger and fries back out to the kitchen.
Angelina, bless her heart, had finished her nacho chip, and was happily licking the crumbs and melted cheddar from her little digits. Her gentle face was relaxed with blissful indifference as she inspected her fingers for any leftover tid-bits of guilty pleasure. If she had been a kitten, she would have been purring. Then, she took a little sip of her Coke and with consoling eyes, glanced toward the kitchen for a second, and then back at me before carefully selecting her next nacho chip.The waitress eventually returned carrying the same sorry cheeseburger and fries that she took from me several minutes earlier. She explained how the restaurant had apparently run out of "the thickest bacon you have ever seen", and decided to substitute it with a greasy pile of flaccid eel penises without giving me the choice of either accepting the substitution, or changing my order. Even the option to reorder was undesirable at this point because of how long all of this was taking. I did not want to start my meal at the end of Angelina's, so, I sucked it up, and just settled for the penis burger. My incision site was starting to ache at this point, and the thought of my Lazy-Boy and half a Vicodin sounded better to me than anything Chili's could offer anyway. I removed most of the bacon from the burger of broken promises and proceeded to make quick work of it along with the cold fries. To Chili's credit, our server did present us with a $5 coupon towards our next visit. Now... I could be a dick and start writing about $5 coupons versus $8 hamburgers and $4 gallons of gas, but I won't. Even with her impressive head-start, I think that I actually finished my meal before Angelina did. I can't even begin to explain how slow she eats. Maybe someday I'll give it a try though. We were both ready to call it a night so we grabbed the check, the coupon, my borrowed cane and hit the road.
Angelina and I discussed the details of the counterfeit bacon incident for most of that evening. As much as I hate to disappoint that woman, I know that I bummed her out quite a bit that night with all my bacon-related rantings. In fact, this wasn't our first customer service related discussion in the past 2.5 years. We have had a few of them. The common theme always seems to be related to me being disappointed due to a restaurant worker's miscue. Angelina is far more easygoing about restaurant screw ups than I am. She's a "big picture"person as well as a "bigger person" person. After all, it's only freakin' food. Right? I do get that much. There are definitely bigger things to get in a twist over. She would probably prefer that we all just do our best to get along, no matter how thick the bacon is. I understand that a 44-year-old man giving a 20-year-old waitress the stink-eye over a botched side order of slaw probably isn't a good first step toward reaching customer-server harmony. In Angelina's eyes it probably just looks childish and mean. Maybe my honey sees me as one of the good guys, and would be happy to have other people see me in that light as well. Hm...
....You know something though? I still like to get what I order. I'll have to think about this some more.
