The Shit List: Downtown Chain Restaurants

I wanted to reserve this list for groups of people I really dislike, but bad management IS people and the root of the problem. And I’ve heard it’s not good to “stuff” your feelings. I never have a good bottle of booze handy anyway. I spent last week attending lectures so by Friday I was numb enough as it was. And all that sitting! I hate it when my butt cheeks fall asleep. It really wasn’t the place to stand up and shake it. The first day I was surprised to see some one I knew. Pat is extremely boring one-on-one and I was in physical pain trying to have a conversation with him, but he is a nice guy and no one likes to dine in public alone. Well, we don’t. We didn’t want to risk getting back late so after factoring in everything (traffic, parking, wait time, etc.) we had to have lunch downtown. Our places of choice were scattered around the outer edges of the city and we were stuck in the center. Math is never fun and was working against us.



When I’m in the largest city in the state I normally try to avoid downtown. Traffic stinks and the only place to catch a bite without messing with a meter is a chain restaurant, which you can find elsewhere. But now I have even more reasons. Pat didn’t know what to expect either so I can’t pin any of this on him. Hence the shit list. We went to a different place each day and they all sucked. These were the two worst.



We started off the week at Perkins. When our waitress came over I immediately recognized her. I used to work with her somewhere else and she looked exactly the same as she did ten years ago, from her hairstyle right down to her pregnant belly. Talk about deja vu. But wait, there’s more. She still has this cold and pissed off look like she will either pull out a gun or start balling if you ask how her day’s going. Don’t think this just comes with being a waitress and packing a fetus. She’s always had a way of making people uncomfortable, prego or not. Well, everyone has their skills. She also hates conversation unless it involves her complaining, so I was glad she stuck to her job. I was hungry so I ordered the ‘Everything Omelet’, which was a ten dollar omelet. Ten dollars! Everything Omelet! So I’m thinking I’ll be in omelet heaven. Was I wrong to assume that? Umm… After getting my omelet I couldn’t help but wonder where the rest of it was. Seriously, it looked like something a model would not only inhale but actually leave in her stomach. I was already put off, then I noticed the cheese on top wasn’t melted. The last time I got my food like that (A&W summer 2006) the entire thing was cold. Well, it was actually much worse. My chili dog was partially frozen. So was I wrong to assume my omelet would be a little coldish? Since it didn’t look frozen I dove right into it. I burned my tongue.


I had it coming. And I’m always this scary.

As you can see I’m wrong a lot of the majority of the time. And when I’m wrong I’m very, very wrong. And as if all that weren’t bad enough, while I was pretending not to be in pain I noticed another tight-lipped, snobby snot waitress who worked with me that same year. It wasn’t weird enough to see just one of these old sour puss co-workers, so here were two of them in the same damn place. And yet, after thinking it over I left a nice tip for the walking time bomb. Some day some one might get hurt.

The next day Pat was craving some kind of KFC bowl that had mashed potatoes, gravy, chicken and cheese all mixed together. I still don’t know what it’s called. For one, they didn’t have it up on the board. Two, he couldn’t remember the name. We stood there for a while as he looked for it, until an anorexic looking young woman with greasy hair and a depressed demeanor slowly came out of the darkness (maybe some bulbs had burned out). And the place was dark too. To be more specific, this girl looked like an emo 8th grader but was Addams Family creepy. The bad lighting didn’t help any. No, scratch that. If the lighting was any good we would’ve seen more creepy.


They always start with dolls

Pat described what he wanted and she rang it up. Although it sounded grotesque, like what a one-year-old does with his food right before he throws it on the floor, I knew Pat had some taste so I told the Addams girl I’d try it. Then she said we’d have to wait while they made the chicken. It was lunchtime at KFChicken and they weren’t ready for 2 measly orders? Great. It got worse though. We sauntered off to find a table and there were plenty of them. There were only 3 other people in the place which I thought was odd, at first. Then we went from table to table. We couldn’t find one that was clean. Not one! Every single table was dirty. Magnificent. Pat went from disgusted to determined to make it better somehow. He chose a small table with only a few crumbs and used a napkin to wipe it off. He was really hell bent on this chicken potpourri so I thought it had to be good. When it was ready we had to go back to the counter. Perkins prices but no waitresses in sight? Yes, I was pissed the bowl thing cost ten bucks. I know it’s all about location, but we weren’t in a frigging mall. Okay, I’ll admit the chicken/potato gumbowl was very tasty, but it shouldn’t take a Taser to get your employees to wipe tables or show some courtesy. And they should at least look like they might not be carving out the hearts of live chickens by candlelight in a back room. Oddly enough the rest room was clean, so if I’m ever in the neighborhood and need to pee or drop something off...

Sick of Dreaming

I’m talking about dreams today, and not the kind that when achieved give you a massive ego, and the next thing you know you’re invading other countries in the name of ‘peace’ rather than fixing your own. No, I mean the other kind of dreams - the sleep kind. I wish that every night as I slept it could be a quiet, still darkness until I awoke because having dreams nearly every night is exhausting. If you go to sleep and your mind and all of your senses go to sleep with you, all I can say is you are one lucky bastard.

My dreams are so realistic I’ll think it’s real life until something so weird and over the top happens that I’ll realize it’s just a dream and either get pissed off or be relieved. How I feel about it depends on whether it was a good dream or a bad one. But lately I’m always pissed off when I wake up. I’m pissed off because I had a nightmare. I’m pissed off because I had a good dream then had to wake up. I’m pissed off because I had a good dream that morphed into a nightmare. I’m just pissed off that I keep dreaming, period.

Last night I dreamt that I started meeting up with a realtor because it seemed like as good a time as any to buy a home. The realtor and I became friends during our visits while I was house shopping. She apparently grew tired of me shooting down every suggestion with, “Can’t afford it.” So she somehow talked an old rich couple into lowering the price on a home she thought was perfect for me and the kids. When I went to check it out I was a bit skeptical because it was an old home and we all know what happened in the movie The Money Pit. But the place had wood floors so it started out on the right foot, as I’m allergic to dust mites. There were four huge bedrooms on the main floor. The bedrooms and dining room all had old faux wood paneling which made those rooms dark. The living room was a cheery room with white walls and lots of windows letting the sun in, but it was smaller than the other rooms. The kitchen was pretty basic, nothing special about it. After scoping out the main floor I climbed an old, wooden twisting staircase that creaked on every step and made me uneasy but it led to a gigantic room that had a wood floor and a huge almost wall-to-wall window that was 6 ft. high and overlooked the backyard. There was a long short seat built into the floor in front of the window so the kids and I could sit there and watch the stars at night. That was pretty cool and I was sold at that point. Then we went down to the basement. It was newly remodeled and quite the opposite of your average basement. It was all very bright - white from the floor up to the ceiling, with tons of white cupboards with violet trim and teal knobs. There was a kitchen, bathroom and a door leading outside so it was a place of its own.

The strangest thing is most of my dreams, overall, take place in houses and each house is different from the next. But this is the first time I dreamt of buying one. What could this mean? Well, it obviously means I need to get out more. And maybe I should be designing homes for a living. I know it doesn't mean I'm ready to buy a home. How absurd!

Well, back to the dream. After deciding I wanted the house my ex-husband Slick came over to see the kids and we got back together. That was the moment I realized I was just dreaming. WTF?! Now that I knew this wasn’t real life things got chaotically crazy. We got a man-maid (what the hell is that?) and a female nanny to take care of the kids, then Slick and I went on a road trip. When we drove through the Res Slick picked up a drunk Native American who just happened to be hitch-hiking. Then as we continued down the highway we kept seeing explosions as bombs were being dropped all over the mountains. Big, bad firey explosions. Great balls of fire! We could feel the ground shake every time a bomb dropped, and I swear I’m not a Vet. That shit finally scared me awake. And this was one of my milder dreams.

I guess this also means I need to take a road trip. And maybe, that they all should fear bombs on the Reservation.

Do your dreams wear you out? Ever?