Bless Her Heart....

Bless her heart.....she was the most foolish, fumbling, incompetent waitress. Ever.

Now let me say, I waited tables for five years and have a pretty extensive patience threshold when it comes to servers, but this poor woman hurdled that line and kept running.

Mark and I sat down to what promised to be a lovely evening of good food and wine in a very cozy little Italian restaurant. Little did we suspect that our evening was about to hijacked. Once seated, we waited for a substantial amount of time (enough that we had chosen our wine as well as decided on what to order for the evening) before she even came to the table.

Finally she arrived. She approached the table with a very fixed smile on her face and her eyes so wide open that she might have been watching a horror film. When she greeted us her speech came out so stilted and scripted sounding that I actually thought she might have a nervous tic.

Hello. Sorry. you. had. to.....wait...so long. Can. I. take your drink. order?

We ordered our wine and sort of winced at each other as she walked away. After about five minutes she returned, still wide-eyed and still awkward.

"Your. wine. will. be right. up......I will. return.....with. some bread and. oil...and water."

(No nervous tic....just nervous crazy.)

She soon came back with our wine, two glasses of water and bread, but no oil. Upon what I can only imagine was her realizing her oversight she sort of slapped the end of our table and walked off again. At this point Mark and I were very bemused by her obvious greenhorn status and resulting crudeness.

A few moments more and she returned to the table with the oil and made the first of many bizarre comments.

"Here you. go. I would not expect. you. to. eat that."

We can only assume she meant that we wouldn't eat the bread without the oil, but we aren't sure. She then recited the evening specials to us while Mark and I tried with all of our strength not to burst out laughing as she butchered the words and continued to make strange commentary.

Mark ordered the three-cheese pizza. Her response to this was:

"Wonderful. That is our. best cheese...... made pizza. cheese. It is fabulous."

Yeah. I don't know.

So at this point her anxiety and cloddishness is actually beginning to make us quite uncomfortable. Fortunately, we were about to get a nice long reprieve from her. Unfortunately, this is because we waited for a long.....long......time for our food. This is also the juncture that we actually started looking covetously at tables around us with servers who were clearly doing wonderful jobs. This interval was interrupted at one point as she approached the table to tell us that "we shouldn't worry, our food was up in the window". Then she proceeded to talk to the table next to us for 10 minutes. Just as my annoyance was about to brim over onto a manager, a different waiter brought us our food, and we were only accosted by the painful floundering of our poor, clueless server (bless her heart) once while we ate.

This, at first, was a great relief as we could eat our meal and converse in relative peace. However, this relief turned to irritation when we had both finished our meals, pushed them to the middle of the table, and then sat there for probably another 15 to 20 minutes until she finally returned with yet another apology for keeping us waiting. The apologies at this point were becoming almost as obnoxious as her bad service. We were so anxious to be away from her that we decided to order dessert to go. I asked her for a tiramisu to-go and she repeated it back to me. We also asked her to box our left-over food.

10 minutes.

"Sorry. your food is. being. boxed. Don't. worry. I didn't. eat. it."

ummmm....okay.

10 minutes

Different waitress comes out with......

Two PLATES of tiramisu. I tell her that it was supposed to be ONE order TO GO.

5 minutes

"So. sorry. When you. told me. about it being to. go. it must. have gone....right. out my...ear."

She brings us two to-go boxes of tiramisu and tells us again that she is sorry and then says...I kid you not...

"Here is your tiramisu...it is kind of jacked up. I mean, there are two halves. a whole....and two halves...and like 2....for one...I'm sorry."

Mark then asks where our food is since it was taken away to be boxed up about 20 minutes ago and we haven't seen it since. She says it is still being boxed up and walks away. At this point we are laughing quite uproariously at this truly bizarre evening and laying odds that the food was thrown away 20 minutes ago.

We left the restaurant with two boxes full of tiramisu, our left-overs (to our surprise, they hadn't been thrown away, though there was a piece of pizza missing, strangely enough) and a renewed appreciation for the servers out there that know how to do their job and can make a dinner into a phenomenal evening.

Bless her heart...

Driving Under the Influence of Crack

There is a new kind of terror on the road.

It makes drunk driving and road rage look like kindergarten squabbles.

Beware of those who drive with...

CRACKS IN THEIR WINDSHIELDS! (dramatic musical interlude)


Yesterday coming back from a lovely coffee with friends, I was talking on my cell phone when I glance up and see flashing blue lights in my rearview. I immediately hang up, and glance at my speedometer. 68. Definitely under the posted 70 and far under the typical 90 that most Mississippians drive.

Another quick glance at my registration...up to date. What the hell?

Did they change the law again? Is it now illegal to talk on your cell phone? That must be it. Dammit.

BUT NO....

"Maam, I pulled you over today because of the crack in your windshield"

(completely blank look back at him)

"That windshield will not pass Mississippi inspection."

At this point every muscle was tensed as I fought the urge to respond "OH, you mean the Mississippi Inspection where you pull up and hand $5 out the window to a toothless gentleman who hands you back an inspection sticker? That inspection?"

Had I said it, I can only assume he would have responded in the affirmative.

Then he asked for my license and insurance. I hand over my license, but sonofabitch, I never printed out the up-to-date insurance card. Dammit, and Mark was telling me just the other day to do it too. Bastard! I hate when he is right!

"Maam, did you know that failure to produce proof of insurance is a $1000 fine?"

"I have insurance, I promise. Here is the expired one (big smile. does this shirt show any cleavage? damn.)

"Maam, why do you have a Texas Registration and a Mississippi inspection sticker?"

(on a side note.....you get tired of typing out the name of this state after about two repetitions)

"Because we are in the military, and Texas is our state of residence (THANK GOD)"

"Please let me see your military ID"

sigh

"It is in my other purse. I have a USAA credit card" (another big smile.....maybe if I sort of push my arms together and lean over.)

"I will be right back"

HORSESHIT! I am totally going to get a $1000 ticket because I had a crack in my windshield. Nevermind the drivers that are zipping past me doing 20 over. Nevermind that it is LEGAL TO HAVE AN OPEN CAN OF BEER IN A VEHICLE. I am going to have to fork over $1000 because of a crack and some absentmindedness. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY.

Luckily, I just got a warning. So I am passing the warning on to you. COPS IN MS ARE SERIOUS ABOUT DRIVING WITH CRACK.

Another Reminder of the Difference Between Sugar & Spice and Snails & Puppy Dog Tails

A phone conversation between me (in Biloxi) and Mark (in Jackson)....

....so things are going well up there?

Yeah, it's fine.

(pause)

My lips are chapped, I need to buy some chapstick.

You need to exfoliate them first.

What?

Exfoliate them. Just mix some sugar with some olive oil and rub that on your lips.

(no response)

Are you doing it? Do you have sugar and olive oil up there?

(pause)

I have salt and Pam.

How I Died Right Before Christmas

Everyone has had that moment of kick-your-ass realization that though you have just spent a good portion of your day out running errands, you have forgotten something so critical that it might cause a change in the lunar cycle or possibly even knock the earth out of rotation. In this case it was shallots.

I had been out store-hopping (because in Biloxi you have to go to seven stores to acquire what you could get in one or two anywhere else in the country) for about four hours two days before Christmas to get everything we needed for our Christmas dinner. Filets, cheese, wine: check, check, check. Shallots: horseshit!

Back to Walmart I headed with a dread in my heart not unlike that which I used to carry with me into chemistry tests. Bracing myself as I circled the full parking lot, I repeated the mantra: just run in, grab the godforsaken shallots and get out.

Running through the parking lot. Flying past the tottering old greeter. Dodge the lardass on his scooter to get into the produce section. Target-lock. Shallots in hand. Dashing to the express check out......so....close...

And then I was abruptly cut off by a fat, middle-aged couple wielding a cart with a questionable number of groceries. A little discouraged I got in line behind them. At least there was only them in front of me, and one other person in front of them. Little did I appreciate the cruelty of Walmart. Why else would you put a half-blind, confused, slow-moving cashier in the express line unless you had hidden a camera somewhere and were getting your jollies from watching customers squirm? And squirm I did, because that is what you do when your blood starts boiling.

My patience was wearing thin as the woman in front of me unloaded three or four items from the cart. Then she said that she would be paying for these items separately.

Breathe. Count to 10.

Sometime around the next Christmas this transaction was finished and the cashier turns to the man who pulls out a 12-pack of beer from the cart. The cashier eyes him questioningly and then looks at the rest of the stuff still in there.

"Oh" he mumbled. "I am going to pay for that separately, because this won't cover these."

He was holding out a foodstamp card.

I don't know what the cashier's response was because at that point my head exploded and I died.

Christmas for Two Please......

Our Christmas this year was a cozy one. Two place setttings. Two filets. Two glasses of wine.









Mark catered to one my whims by making me cupcakes. There is something about cupcakes with lots of frosting that strips away about 20 years. We spent most of the day alternating between being in the kitchen cooking or sampling and being on the couch watching Christmas movies.


We ended the day in a storm of torn wrapping paper in the joy of which Charlie thoroughly exhausted herself.







Merry Christmas Everyone!!

The Lazy Route

Cesar would be so disappointed in us.

Every morning I get up and walk Charlie for about 45 minutes, give or take depending on the weather. And every afternoon, either Mark and I sit out in the backyard, accompanied by about a thousand mosquitos and gnats, and play fetch or chase with her. This is what you have to do when you have a dog with this kind of energy level. When we don't....we pay for it.

But sometimes, you just don't have it. There are some afternoons that the damn no-see's keep me holed up in my house with the door locked. There are Sundays where I am still in my pajamas at 3:49 in the afternoon and the prospect of having to dig up my tennis shoes to go outside is just too much.

For those afternoons, we resort to the Kong. The Kong is an absolutely incredible, INDESTRUCTIBLE, indispensable toy that we have had since she was a puppy. It may be the equivalent of sticking a child in front of the television, but you put a little peanut butter down in that thing, and you have at least 45 minutes of respite.

I am sorry Cesar. Kong wins this round.

A Very Expensive Cherry Coke (or Why Charlie Had a Banner Night)

I am not exactly sure where to begin the story of tonight.

Perhaps I could start with lunch this afternoon when I picked up the styrofoam cup that had been previously full of Coke and, after taking an empty slurp, swore at Mark. He had begun with a small sip and that progressed into an absentminded consumption of every last drop.

Or maybe my tale needs to begin at some point during one of the four times that Mark's car battery has died in the past year.

Or, I could go all the way back to when we bought the damn Toyota Echo that Mark affectionately refers to as "his pregnant roller skate" due to it's snub-nosed design. This hamster-powered, tiny car that lacks basics such as power-steering was far from our first choice, but our options were severely restricted when, with both of us in school and living on student loans, his former POS died so suddenly and completely that we literally left it on the side of the road with a note inviting anyone who could drive it to keep it.

Regardless of where it begins, the story picks up at the point when we pulled the frozen pizza out and popped it in the oven for dinner tonight. Mark declared he was going to have a beer and I commented that I usually like Coke with my pizza. Still feeling bad about drinking all of mine at lunch earlier today, he decided to redeem himself by leaving right then, driving to Sonic and getting me a Cherry Coke with extra cherries. What a sweetheart!

Three minutes later my phone rang.

DING DING DING. You guessed it! Dead battery!!!!

So I pulled the pizza, all bubbly and smelling gorgeous, out of the oven, threw Charlie (who was looking longingly at the pizza) outside, and went to rescue my husband.

Unfortunately, it seems things were a little more serious than usual this time. The hypochondriac battery had finally become seriously ill, and could not be resuscitated. So it was on to Walmart to buy a new battery, and then back to Sonic so that Mark could replace the one that was now in a better place.

(On a side-note ladies, how sexy is it that my husband actually knows how to replace a car battery himself?)


So the $1.50 Coke became an eighty dollar battery and consumed the majority of our evening, but don't fret! This story has a happy ending!




When we finally got home and I was pulling the pizza out of the oven for the second time, it slipped and about two thirds of the toppings slid right off. When you are a dog....it just doesn't get better than that.