MY LUNCHTIME MELODRAMA

Now I don't normally have weird things happen while eating in a restaurant, but then there was that time when the little sour cream package squirted me in the face.  I'm just fortunate that way.

We've been on vacation this past week, and I had a "Perils of Pauline" moment when we stopped for lunch in Tallulah Falls, Georgia.  Nice, quaint little town where Tallulah Gorge is located.  People, for some reason, wish to climb up and down that gorge, even go on canoes in the river there.  Odd.  The restaurant decor consisted of paddles in different shapes, sizes, and colors.  I felt out of place.

I ordered a hand-pattied burger cooked medium well.  When it arrived, it looked delicious, with lettuce, tomato, and red onion, specialty bun, homemade potato salad.  However, when I bit into that burger, I'm surprised it didn't start mooing because it was way undercooked for my liking.  The outside of the patty was done, but only the outside quarter inch edge--the rest was red and not very warm at all.  So, I asked the waitress to have it cooked some more.  She smilingly complied.

While I was waiting for my recooked burger (or should I say "cooked" burger), a fly meandered over to our table and jumped into my iced tea, did several laps around the ice cubes at the top, then decided to fly back out.  Hmmmm.  I decided that I didn't want to drink that tea, because flies are filthy and I didn't want the germs.  I mean, who knows where that fly had been before taking a swim in my glass of tea, right?  So, you guessed it--I had to ask the waitress to bring me a new glass of tea!  This time, her smile was a bit forced.

Soon, she brought me an entirely new burger, well cooked this time, including an entirely new serving of that nice potato salad.  Took a bite of the burger, and it was good.  Started to take a bite of the potato salad, but the kitchen had inadvertently kept my fork (which had been on my first plate) when they cooked that new burger to my liking.  By now, I don't think the waitress liked me very much, because I had to ask for another fork, sweetly explaining that my original one had been on my first plate.  She brought me another, but no smile this time.

I had the feeling that this little restaurant was glad when we left.  I wasn't trying to be difficult, really.  I merely wanted my burger un-raw, iced tea sans flies, and a utensil with which to eat their really good potato salad.

They didn't know me, thankfully, and will most likely never see my face at that restaurant again.  I should have caught on when I first saw all those paddles.  Not my cup of tea at all--no pun intended, of course.