Hi it’s Christina –
Good Morning! Happy first
day of October – there are now thirty days until Halloween, fifty-seven days
until Thanksgiving, eighty-four days until Christmas, and only ninety days
until the end of 2014. Cripes!
I shall warn and
apologize, in advance, because a goodly portion of this blog is going to be a
bit of a rant. Early last evening, Dani and I were watching Castle re-runs on
TNT, and a commercial came on for Olive Garden. The food looked SO good, and I
commented on it. Dani said, “Let’s go.”
I hemmed and hawed a
little, because I had dinner planned. We were going to have ham, sweet
potatoes, broccoli and corn, but I hadn’t started making it yet. I should have
stuck with my plan, but instead, I told Dani to call her dad to see if he
wanted to go out to dinner. Surprisingly, he said yes.
We arrived at the
Bridgewater Olive Garden, on Route 202, at 7:15, and were seated immediately. Then
again, it was a Tuesday night, so this shouldn’t have surprised me. Only a dozen
or so tables were occupied. There were four wait-staff, two greeters, and a
manager, that I saw right away, but who knows, there could have been more.
Great, we can get in, eat, and get out quickly.
It was funny, at their
front counter, they have a fishbowl filled with business cards. You drop your
card in, and you could win a free lunch. So I dropped my card in – what the
heck, right? I start following the host to the table, but I stop when I feel a
little tug on my purse. Dani was reaching in the outside pocket to grab one of
my cards so she could drop on in. She stopped and we all laughed when she realized
I had already put one in the bowl. Although they would never admit it, my kids
and I do think a lot alike.
Anyway, we’re seated and
given menus, and Paulie asks me, “So what looked so good that we had to come here
tonight?”, and for the life of me, I hadn’t a clue. Nothing, on the three
different menus they gave us, looked overly appealing. After several minutes, a
rather frazzled looking waitress comes over to greet us and take our drink
order. Paulie got a beer, Dani a soda, and I asked for lemonade with light ice,
explaining the cold hurts my mouth. She said no problem, but asks if
raspberry-lemonade was alright. Sure, fine, whatever, I like
raspberry-lemonade.
While we’re waiting for
our drinks to arrive – and the bread sticks – don’t they usually plop those
amazing bread sticks on the table almost as soon as you sit down? – we continued
to peruse the menus. We each make a decision, pile up the menus, and put them
on the edge of the table – that’s the international signal for “We’ve made our
selection”, right?
With no menus or drinks to
distract us, we begin to take in our surroundings – the teenage girl in the
dollar store tiara probably celebrating her birthday (why else would she leave
the house in a tiara?), the obnoxious five-some at the table next to us – two couples
and mom – also celebrating a birthday, the broken cheese grater shoved under a
picture, the plate on the wall that wasn’t hung straight. I could go on, but
you probably have guessed, I had ample time to notice my surroundings.
The waitress finally
arrives with our drinks, takes our order, and returns relatively quickly with
our salad. Paulie asks about the bread sticks, and the waitress tells him she
has to go get them out of the oven. She will bring them over in a few minutes.
Yummy, fresh from the oven bread sticks. I take a sip of my lemonade and wince.
There’s a difference between light ice and no ice at all, especially if the
drink is actually warm. Warm lemonade – YUCK! How can it be warm? Don’t they
keep it in the fridge?
We eat our salads, and I
pile up our plates and forks and leave them at the edge of the table – the international
signal for “We’re Done”, right? Paulie leaves to go to the loo, leaving Dani
and me at the table. A few minutes later, the manager is doing the dining room
stroll, and asks us how we’re doing. I said, “Fine, but bread sticks would make
it better.” She said she would go and get us some, and then dithered over
whether to take our salad bowls away. Really? It should have been a reflexive
response, especially for a manager.
She took the bowls and
disappeared into the kitchen. Shortly, she returned with a basket of three
bread sticks, wrapped in a paper napkin. Three? Paper napkin? Really? And to top
it off, the bread sticks were dark brown, hard, and over-seasoned. What the
heck? Such a disappointment, but I guess we really didn’t need the extra carbs.
Paulie returns from the
bathroom ... and we sit ... and we wait. The obnoxious five-some’s phones are
ringing, and they are yacking on them, making them even louder and more obnoxious
than they already were. These people were my age and older, not some young
kids. You would think they would know how to behave in a restaurant.
Between the ruckus the
people next to us were making, the piped background music which was set too
loud, the other patrons talking, and the general noises a restaurant brings, it
was difficult to hold our own conversation. By the time 8:30 rolled around, and
we still had not been served our dinner, we had had enough.
I went up to the counter
and asked them to make our order to go. I complained that waiting over an hour
for our food was ridiculous, especially since they weren’t busy. Do you think
the manager apologized? Do you think she had offered a free appetizer or
dessert to say they were sorry for the inconvenience? Do you think she offered
to adjust the bill in any way? Then she had the nerve to give me a dirty look
when I only put $5 as the tip – for a waitress who DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.
Even though she did
nothing, I still left her a 10% tip, which was much more than she deserved. I
waitressed for eons. I know how tough a job it is, and because of that, I am a
notoriously generous tipper. If you smile, are polite, and honestly try, even
if you make a mistake, you’re getting 20% from me. If you provide exceptional
service, you’re getting more.
If the tip is one of those
automatically calculated into the bill jobs, I’m palming you an extra five or
ten. That’s just the way I am. For the most part waiters and waitresses bust
their butts, and are not amply compensated, especially if they get stuck with
below average tippers. Their hourly rate is usually between $2 - $3 an hour,
and they are relying on their tips to bring them up to minimum wage.
Anyway, after my encounter
with the never-should-have-been-promoted-to-a-manager, I reached into the
fishbowl and retrieved my business card. I wasn’t coming back to this Olive
Garden, even if the meal was for free. Then I went outside and waited with
Dani, leaving Paulie to retrieve the food. Fifteen minutes later, he finally
emerges from the restaurant, claiming the delay was all my fault.
You see, they apologized
for taking so long, they were waiting for the stuffed mushrooms to cook.
Really? I don’t know about you, but I have made stuffed mushrooms on several
occasions, and they have NEVER taken an hour to cook. They are an appetizer
item for goodness sake. They cook fairly quickly.
By the time we get home, I
am so aggravated, I really didn’t feel like eating, but because I had ordered
fried calamari, which does not reheat well, I didn’t have much of a choice. I
had to eat them. So I grab the container of calamari and the little tub of
marinara sauce they provided with it, plop into the chair in the living room,
and turn on NCIS: New Orleans.
I’m focusing on the show, really
not paying any attention to my food, and I take my first bite. It’s under-cooked.
Sorry, for me, under-cooked squid is called bait, not a meal. How can a supposed
chef, trained in Italy, screw up calamari? It’s practically a no-brainer. You
bread it, you toss it in the hot oil, and when it turns a beautiful light,
golden brown, you take it out.
I closed the calamari back
up, and decided to try the stuffed mushrooms. Now, usually when you have a
seafood based stuffed mushroom, the seafood inside is crab meat. Well, that is
not the case in Olive Garden’s stuffed mushrooms. Instead of crab meat, they use
clams, but hey, that’s okay, I like clams. Let me rephrase that, I like clam
meat, not the sand and grit that comes from not properly soaking your clams
before cooking them.
Paulie and Dani didn’t
even touch their dinners last night. Let’s hope their eggplant and lasagna are
better than my calamari and stuffed mushrooms. Lesson learned. If I am in the
mood for Italian food again, I’ll head to Carrabba’s Italian Grill and steer
clear of Olive Garden.
You can’t say I didn’t
warn you. I hope you have an extraordinary day, and happy writing!
Your
Next Challenge:
If
(s)he had only listened…
You have ten minutes (be
honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t
count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.
It makes folks
laugh, and many do stop so I can talk to them a little more, but Sam says my
books deserve a more serious approach – “they are too good and you are not
giving them enough credit” – I appreciate the compliment on my writing
abilities, and I love the fact that he wants me to sell more books at these
events, but I don’t know if I can do what he suggests. I don’t know if I can
make it feel natural, and I like to make people laugh.
Don’t get me
wrong, I would love to be able to sell more books, and because I have more than
one book to sell, the return customer is more important to me than the initial
sale. Also, after these events, my sales of my Kindle books go up. 
So, with the
exception of Milford Alive which was a total bust, I don’t mind only selling
one or two books at these events. I love meeting the people, talking to them,
seeing the kids smile when I offer them candy, and watching the tails of my
four legged friends wag when I give them a cookie. Success should not always
come down to dollars and cents.
All of the photos in today's blog are from the Scarecrow Festival at Peddler's Village. As to be expected, there were several Frozen inspired scarecrows this year. 
I love the one of Sven, and completely agree with its blue ribbon status. If you have any time between now and October 26th (I think), you
should get over to Peddler’s Village and check out all of the scarecrows. Some
of them are quite imaginative. Sorry for all the crazy paragraph breaks, I wanted to get in as many picture as I could in this post.
On a more
serious note, today marks the two year anniversary of my son’s best friend’s
death in a tragic motorcycle accident. It is hard to believe two years have
passed already. Bobby was such a sweet and amazing kid, who touched the lives
of everyone around him. Since his family lives in Florida, and he is buried up
here, I will make sure his grave has flowers on it today. 
