We had a near repeat of Mothers' Day this Fathers' Day (please note that the apostrophe should come
after the s as it is a day to celebrate
all fathers, not just one) in that we all went for bunch and gambling at the greyhound race track. It was a very good time. My dad gave me $40, enough to bet my usual ($2 per race, the minimum), and I bet on dogs according to my 7-year-old nephew's suggestions. He was alarmingly accurate on Mothers' Day, like some sort of gambling savant. His luck wasn't quite as good this time, but not terrible. I wasn't able to give my dad his $40 back, but I did give him $23! Not too shabby for a 7-year-old, eh? Anyway, nothing disgusting happened at the dog track. Something disgusting happened immediately after when I had to pee while we were at the cheese store but the ladies' room was closed for cleaning: I had to make my poor brother stand guard at the door while I raced past the urinals to pee as quickly as humanly possible in the men's room. Men's rooms are disgusting, but that wasn't the most disgusting this ever.
We went out to dinner later at a decent enough restaurant. A bit of a blue-hair hang out, but decent food and low prices (which is why my dad likes it). Our waitress was a little odd in a matronly sort of way, but I liked her well enough (mostly because she called my brother "young lady" when she went to take his order and made no apology or correction when he looked up at her revealing his maleness). . . until the food arrived. Instead of the vegetables du jour (broccoli and carrots), my dad specifically requested corn when he ordered. However, mistakes happen as they sometimes do in restaurants, and my dad's plate arrived with broccoli and carrots; corn was nowhere in sight. He very politely pointed out the mistake and what happened next nearly made my jaw hit the floor and the contents of my stomach march right back up.
She grabbed an empty bread plate, picked my up my dads fork, and starting moving the broccoli and carrots off my dad's plate and onto the bread plate. She did this without an attitude, but also without asking or really saying anything at all - which was quite weird, but not disgusting. Then, the unthinkable happened.
SHE TOOK THE VEGETABLES BACK TO THE KITCHEN.
Seriously. I nearly threw up. Of course you could assume that she threw them out, but if she was going to throw them out, why take them back in the first place? I think it's very reasonable to assume that she took them back and then later served them to someone else. I second guessed every bite I took of my meal. How many tables had this been served to and sent away from before it finally reached me? I questioned everything. The arrangement of the morsels on the plate definitely looked like second-hand work! This is definitely not warm enough for this to have been its first stop! That vegetable looks like it was cut post-kitchen, don't you think?
No one was as disturbed by this as I was, and I still can't figure out why not. Dad said he didn't care if someone else had his broccoli now as long as no one else had his corn first. EXACTLY, DAD.
/hurl
Anyway, happy Fathers' Day to my dad! A great guy, I love him. And a happy Fathers' Day to your dad, to you if you are a dad, and to every father or father-figure that has touched your life and helped make you who you are today!