A Three-Hour Tour

We had a Gilligan’s Island-type experience last night. Those of you who watched this ridiculous show in the 1970s will remember that the passengers on the S.S. Minnow set off on what was to be a three-hour tour but never returned, instead getting shipwrecked on an island in the middle of nowhere (although the Harlem Globetrotters were able to find them during sweeps week).

We did not board a ship…were never lost at sea…and didn’t end up on a deserted island with people who could fashion a radio from a coconut but could not figure out how to repair the wrecked boat. But we did try to go to dinner last night to celebrate my husband’s birthday, and we almost never returned. Plus, they serve seafood at this restaurant. And our girls are more beautiful than even Ginger, the Movie Star.

Okay, perhaps that’s where the similarities end.

But the point is, we went to this particular restaurant because it didn’t seem as crowded as some other choices on a Friday night and we had two tired little llamas in tow. We actually got seated fairly quickly, but then the real wait began. We didn’t receive menus or give drink orders for at least 10 minutes. We didn’t receive salads for close to an hour. Our entrees didn’t show up until past bedtime. And the desserts – all of which came free with kids’ meals or 44-year-olds’ birthdays – came around the breakfast hour.

Our waiter, who incidentally had a manual entitled So You Want To Work In A Restaurant in his back pocket, explained that two key kitchen helpers had quit earlier that day so the wait staff was having to assist with putting together salads and other miscellaneous duties.

Shortly after this ominous statement, I discovered several strands of hair – dare I say tufts?!? – in my salad. They were not dark like mine, so I can only assume that a well-meaning but hairnet-less waiter had prepared my salad. I suddenly lost my appetite, even though I hadn’t eaten since lunch nine hours earlier.

In an effort to keep the girls busy and entertained, we ordered cheese dip and chips and played games like “I Spy.” Unfortunately, our only real view of the restaurant was the bar area, so now I’m paranoid that one of them will report to their teachers (both at Christian schools) that they spied something yellow Friday night – “a Michelob sign!”

Our waiter would disappear for half hours at a time – presumably to assemble more hairy salads – so once the food finally arrived, the dishes on our table continued to pile up. Two baskets of chips, a bowl of cheese dip, two salad plates, four entrees, four drinks, three desserts (one of which, for the birthday boy, was the size of a small building).

Then we had to request Styrofoam containers for the leftover food – we had fought too hard for this nourishment to leave it on the table! – and began gathering everything we could legally take as if Y2K was about to hit and we needed to stock up for a major impending disaster.

Three hours later, our weary group left the restaurant and headed straight to bed. And I had a really weird dream about the Harlem Globetrotters.