This also marks the end of the guest posts and hopefully I will be back to writing as soon as the jet lag and hangover fade away. Thank you to all the guest bloggers who helped me out while I was gone and thank you to all the readers who visited the site in my absence. -BW
The hostess sat them five minutes before closing,
guaranteeing them one of the most mediocre and hurried dining experiences of
their rude and soon to be inconsequential lives.
I approached the table as they were reveling in their
decision to delay my appointment with an overly-full Grey Goose bottle. “Well,
hellooo there,” the female of the species greeted me with. “Lucky us…Looks like
we made it here just in the nick of time!”
She resembled a modern day June Cleaver, dripping the sort
of naiveté you seldom see anymore in a woman her age. I instantaneously wanted
to kill her, but the thought of leaving the Beaver and Wally rudderless to fend
for themselves without a mother kept me in check.
Ward chimed in from the opposite side of the table. “Yeah,
we got out of the theatre just in time. We weren’t sure if we’d make it here
before you closed, but it’s a good thing we did because we sure are hungry!”
And with that, he proceeded to order a bottle of wine, all
but crushing the fleeting glimmer of hope for getting out at a decent hour to
which I had been deluding myself with.
In addition to myself, the kitchen crew also had their
sights set on negotiating their sobriety with reckless abandon, and already had
most of the back of the house scrubbed and cleaned in hopes of walking out the
door right as the clock struck ten. So it only made sense that I was to blame
for delaying their rendezvous with margaritaville.
Julio threw a ramekin at me as I entered the kitchen,
missing my head by inches. “Goddammit, Cabron! Why didn’t you tell these
panochas we is closed? You more stoopeed than you look!”
“Yeah? That may be, but it hasn’t kept your mother from
trying to turn me into your next stepfather,” I replied on the way out while
dodging another flurry of profanities and kitchen utensils.
Back at the table, Ward and June were busily deciphering the
Sanskrit in front of them. “Honey, what’s buerre blanc sauce,” she asked her
husband over the top of her menu, as if he were about to decode the space/time
continuum before her very eyes. He didn’t disappoint. “It’s some sort of brown
sauce,” he incorrectly countered with confidence while I popped the cork from
their overpriced and mediocre wine selection.
While I poured Ward a sip of swill for his approval, he
sniffed the cork with all the aplomb of someone trying desperately to look like
he knows what he’s doing while simultaneously exuding the expertise of an
Orange County Housewife at a Carburetor Appreciation Convention.
“Do either of you have any questions about the menu,” I
begrudgingly asked while imagining them taking a wrong turn over a cliff on
their way home.
Always one to tap dance her way along the precipice of
chance, June had an announcement for us at ten minutes past our we should be
halfway through our first cocktail by now time. “You know, I feel like getting
really crazy tonight and trying something I’ve never had before! I think we
should go all out and have the escargot as an appetizer!”
“That sounds great, Honey,” Ward chimed in, unaware that
every syllable escorted him perilously closer to being gang-raped with a
rolling pin by a gaggle of thirsty Mexicans.
I walked over to the nearest computer and rang their snail
order in, knowing full well the repercussions awaiting me as a consequence.
Back in the kitchen, I was greeted by an airborne spatula.
“Escargot! What ees this motherfucking bullsheet? You gonna keep us here all
motherfucking night, you pedazo de mierda!”
“Look, I don’t like this any more than you,” I understated.
“Besides. The more I’m here, the longer I’m keeping your sister waiting.”
