We were seated in a quiet little alcove and were soon approached by a waiter dressed in a starched white shirt and black tie. He had on trousers with a pleat so sharp it would cut your finger. His demeanor was somber, and he walked like he had a broomstick up his butt.
He bowed and said, “Good evening, my name is Rolph, and I’ll be serving you this evening.”
“Evening, Ralph,” I replied.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “It’s Rolph, not Ralph.”
This couldn’t be good.
“Uh, yes, Rolph,” I replied and muttered under my breath. “Whatever.”
He laid a book the size of the Kansas City phone directory in front of me.“Our wine list, sir. Would you like a moment?”
I looked at the first page and when I saw that I couldn’t even pronounce their first offering, I figured that it might take more than a moment.
Rolph waited expectantly while I looked at page after page of wines, but I couldn’t find the Arbor Mist. “You do have Arbor Mist, don’t you?”
Rolph looked aghast. “I don’t believe we have that in our wine cellar, sir.” He stuck his nose in the air.
How can you have eight pages of wine and not have Arbor Mist? Go figure.
Maggie came to the rescue. “We’d like a bottle of your house chardonnay,” she said.
“Very good, ma’am,” Rolph replied. He bowed and walked away.
I might as well share some of my other idiosyncrasies. I am neither poor nor uneducated. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I’m a simple guy. I come from a middle class, blue-collar background, but I have made a comfortable life for myself.
One of my pet peeves is the affectations of the wealthy. They irritate me and, in my humble opinion, are a real pain in the butt.
Maggie knows me well, and I thought I saw a smile cross her face as Rolph and I did our verbal thrust and parry. She would have to be on her toes this evening.
Just then, a busboy arrived with a woven basket of bread.
Hot dog.
Now we were getting somewhere.
He laid the basket on the table then produced two small platters and a jug that was filled with some viscous liquid that resembled thirty-weight motor oil. He sprinkled some green stuff on the platters and proceeded to pour the Quaker State on top. “For your bread, sir,” he said and bowed.
That was not how I was accustomed to lubricating my bread.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a pat or two of butter back there, would you?” I asked.
“Very good, sir,” he replied, bowed again, and headed off to the kitchen.
I opened the cloth cover of the breadbasket anticipating warm, soft yeast rolls. Yikes! It might as well have been a basket of hockey pucks. In my mind, I could see Mel’s Texas toast. Thick slices of soft bread lightly buttered and grilled to a golden brown and served piping hot to your table.
Dream on.
Have you ever tried opening one of those things? A hammer and chisel should come with them as standard equipment, and if you do manage to penetrate the outer shell, crumbs are everywhere. I tried, and sure enough, crumbs were everywhere. No sooner had my roll exploded in my lap than Rolph approached with a tiny silver dustpan and a tiny whiskbroom.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said and proceeded to whisk away my crumbs.
Just think of all the labor they would save by serving soft bread. I wondered if they had a suggestion box.
Soon Rolph returned with our bottle of wine, a bucket of ice, and two glasses. He set one glass in front of me, and with the skill of a surgeon he whipped out his corkscrew and popped out the cork. Gotta hand it to old Rolph. It came out in one piece, and he didn’t even need the Black & Decker.
He poured about one swallow in my glass and stepped back. I thought, “I paid forty-five dollars for that bottle. I ought to get more than that!” Then I noticed that he hadn’t poured even a drop in Maggie’s glass.
I looked at Maggie. She grinned at me, nodded her head toward the glass, and said, “How about you give it a taste and make sure it’s right for us?”
“Oh, right!” Maggie saved my butt again. I tasted, and Rolph waited formy response. “It’s okay,” I replied. “But it’s sure no Arbor Mist.”
Rolph turned and walked away.
He returned with menus.
“What’s good tonight, Rolph?” I asked.
Just friendly banter with the waiter.
He stiffened. “Sir, everything from our kitchen is good.”
Well, okay then. It was really just a rhetorical question.
We studied the menu. When I say studied, I’m serious. You’d have to be fluent in three languages to read the thing. “Do you know what any of this stuff is?” I asked Maggie.
She shrugged her shoulders, and frankly I was relieved when she said, “Not really.” I hated being the only dummy.
Rolph returned with order pad in hand and looked expectantly in our direction.
Maggie spoke first. “I’d like a shrimp cocktail and your house salad with creamy Italian dressing, please.” Maggie had been watching the calories, so I didn’t know if her order was weight watching or a cop-out on the menu selections.
Now understand, I’ve got nothing against salad. I even eat it sometimes. But man didn’t get to the top of the food chain by grazing. We’re carnivores, after all. I needed meat.
I pointed to the menu and said to Rolph, “Maybe you can help me out here. Where’s the beef?”
I thought I detected a slight flinch, but Rolph replied without hesitation, “May I recommend our beef tenderloin medallions, garlic whipped potatoes, and vegetable medley.”
“Sounds good to me,” I replied. “Meat, potatoes, and vegetables; can’t be too bad.”
Our dinners arrived. A huge bowl of salad and a glass with shrimp butts sticking out the top was placed in front of Maggie.
I looked at my plate. Good grief! There were two tiny pieces of meat, each about the size of a fifty-cent piece, and each was covered with a teaspoon-sized dollop of mashed potatoes. On the left side of the plate were two carrot spears and on the right two asparagus spears. Yellow gunky stuff was dribbled around the edge of the plate, and a sprig of something that resembled the weeds I spray in my yard was sticking out of the mashed potatoes.
“Lovely presentation, isn’t it, sir?” Rolph gushed.
“Presentation! Really?” I thought. “I‘m gonna starve!”
But to Rolph I replied, “Lovely, just lovely. You wouldn’t happen to have some gravy back there, would you?”
Wounded, he replied, “We don’t serve gravy here, sir.” He walked away.
It didn’t take long to finish dinner.
Rolph returned with another menu. “Would you care to order dessert, sir?”
I was still hungry, and I was thinking of Mel’s pies. Lemon, chocolate, and coconut cream. Six inches high with creamy filling and fluffy white meringue. “Sure,” I said and took the menu.
Okay, they had flambé, brûlée, and a torte, but no pie.
Rolph returned. “Your order, sir?”
“Two tortes,” I replied, “and two cups of coffee.” And off he went.
He returned with a dainty little cup about the size of a big thimble. My heart sank as I thought of the giant mugs of steaming coffee at Mel’s. You could sit and drink all day for $1.95. Here, I was paying $6 a gulp.
I turned to Rolph. “Do you give refills?” Without even a nod he turned and walked away. I think I was getting on his nerves.
He returned with our tortes. Do you know what a torte is? Well, I didn’t either, but I soon discovered it was a little square piece of pastry not much larger than a postage stamp. It doesn’t even have icing, but all kinds of colored syrup were dribbled around the plate in a fancy design. Humph, must have been a Picasso torte. But what good was it? The only way it could be eaten was to lick it off the plate, and after what I’d seen so far, I didn’t think that was an option.
Oh yeah. Presentation.
Probably won’t be back.
****************************************** An excerpt from Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P. http://booksbybob.com/lady-justice-takes-acrap_308.html
The Airport Finally, after days of agonizing over airline schedules, hotel reservations, and car rentals, it was time to go.
Vince had the only vehicle big enough to haul all four of us and our luggage, and he volunteered to take us to the airport. Maggie had spent the night so that she, Willie, and I could be picked up at my apartment. We heard the toot from his horn, grabbed our bags, and headed downstairs.
Knowing my friends as I do, I should have expected what was awaiting us on the front porch, but it took us totally by surprise.
Dad, Bernice, Jerry, and the professor had set up a card table with a small cake and champagne.
Dad spoke first. “We may not be able to be at the big shindig, but we sure as hell aren’t going to let you get away without a proper sendoff.”
With that, he popped the cork and poured the bubbly. He raised his glass. “A toast to my son and his lovely bride. First, let me say how proud I am to have a son like you. I wasn’t a good dad, and I know it. You probably turned out better than if I was around. I weren’t a good husband, neither, so I hope you learned from my mistakes and take good care of this special lady.”
After his brief lapse into morality, Dad reverted to his usual self. “At least I didn’t name you Sue,” he said. He proceeded to tie tin cans to Vince’s back bumper and placed a “Getting Hitched” sign in the back window.
Then came the airport jokes.
The professor blessed us with the Confucius classic, “Man who fly upside down have big crack up.”
Jerry, not to be outdone, droned, “A vulture was boarding an airplane with two dead raccoons. He was stopped at the gangway by a flight attendant. ‘I’m sorry, sir; only one carrion per passenger.’”
Once the toasting, joking, hugging, and crying were dispensed with, we stowed the bags and headed to the Three Trails to pick up Mary.
As expected, she was waiting for us on the porch with—yikes!—four huge suitcases.
“Mary! What’s all of this?”
“It’s my stuff. We’re gonna be gone for three weeks, and I gotta have my stuff.”
She had more than the rest of us put together.
“One bag, Mary. That’s it.”
“Hell, I can’t get my underwear in just one bag.”
I looked at Maggie. “This is your department. I don’t know about women’s things, but we’ve gotta have a shakedown.”
Maggie and Mary took the bags inside, and after a prolonged struggle peppered with language that would have made a sailor blush, they emerged with one suitcase that probably weighed eighty pounds. I decided at that point to utilize the curbside checkin. The skycaps aren’t as fussy about weight if the tip is big enough.
Willie had been unusually quiet, and I noticed on the forty-five-minute drive to the airport that he sat rigid, fists clenched, staring straight ahead. Instead of enjoying the trip to a tropical paradise, he was experiencing what I would imagine a convict would feel on his way to the gas chamber.
We arrived at the airport, and after a bit of wrangling with the skycap and a huge tip, we made our way to the gate.
Naturally, the line extended down the hallway.
I took this opportunity to educate our novice flyers on the security procedures instituted after 9/11.
“You means I got to undress befo’ de let me on de plane?” Willie said.
“Well, not everything, just your belt and shoes and anything metal in your pockets.”
Maggie and I went first to show Willie and Mary how it was done.
No problems.
Willie was next, and I heard him mutter, “Dis is worse dan when I went to visit Louie de Lip in county lockup.”
Three down, and one to go.
Mary placed her enormous purse on the conveyor and stepped through the metal detector.
Brring! The detector lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Ma’am, would you step over here please?”
Mary followed the slender TSA matron to a small cubicle.
“Please stand on those footprints and raise your arms.”
So far so good. Mary hadn’t threatened anyone yet.
The TSA gal grabbed a wand and started running it over Mary’s body. No problem until she put the thing between Mary’s legs.
“Hey, girlfriend. You making a porno movie or something? Hey! Get that thing out of my—”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Walt, this skanky bitch is poking my doodah with that dildo!”
“It’s okay, Mary. She’s just doing her job.”
The TSA gal ran the wand up Mary’s torso. The wand came to life as it passed over Mary’s chesticles.
“Ma’am, do you have anything metal on your body?” She laid the wand down and started feelingaround Mary’s protruding breasts.
“Walt! Now she’s feeling me up.” Then she addressed the TSA matron. “Of course I got on something metal. You don’t think these babies perk out like that on their own, do you? You’re feeling the wires in my pushup bra.”
Finally satisfied that Mary wasn’t a threat to national security, she directed her to the conveyor belt.
A TSA guy pointed to a leather object that could have doubled as a duffel bag. “Is this your purse, ma’am?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We’re going to have to take a look inside.”
Mary looked at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders.
The poor inspector started unloading Mary’s purse.
I doubt that Fibber McGee’s closet held as much crap.
He held up a big bottle of Jergen’s lotion. “Sorry, ma’am, you can’t take this on the plane.”
“But I have dry skin. Do you want me to itch all the way to Hawaii?”
Then he held up a metal flask. “What’s in here, ma’am?”
“That’s my medicine.”
“What is it for?”
“It keeps me calm.”
He unscrewed the lid and took a sniff. “Smells a lot like vodka.”
“Yeah, but it sure keeps me calm.”
He just looked at Mary and shook his head. By the time he was finished, Mary’s purse didn’t weigh as much.
It was still about forty-five minutes before boarding, so we found seats and busied ourselves reading, all except Willie who stared transfixed at the planes landing and taking off. I wondered if it was any comfort that none of them had crashed so far.
My attention was diverted from my reading by the emergence of another security guy being led by a huge German shepherd on a leash.
The dog went from bag to bag sniffing each one for explosives or drugs or other contraband. He was totally focused on the carryon bags and seemed oblivious to the people around him until he came to me. After sniffing my bag, he poked his big nose between my legs and snorted.
What is it with big dogs and my crotch?
Finally, it was time to board.
The desk girl started barking boarding orders, and we dutifully queued up in our designated lines. Just as we were about to surrender our boarding passes, another TSA guy approached me.
“Sir, has anyone put anything in your luggage without your knowledge?”
I just stood there for a minute thinking about his question.
“If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?”
He was still thinking that one over as I backed slowly away and boarded my flight.
I had booked the seats with Maggie and I sitting across the aisle from Willie and Mary.
I whispered to Maggie, “Maybe I should sit with Willie this first time. He’s kind of freaked out.”
She agreed, and we swapped seats.
The hu
ge jet engines roared to life, and the flight attendants warned us of all the terrible things that could happen. The plane backed away from the jet way and began to taxi down the runway. There was a brief pause, and the plane shuddered as the pilot goosed the engines for takeoff.
I had briefed Willie about the barf bag, and he clutched it tightly in his hand.
The big jet sprang forward and picked up speed as it raced down the runway.
I looked at Willie. If there is such a thing as a black man being white as a ghost, he was it. His eyes were as big as saucers, and just as the plane lifted off the ground, he grabbed my arm and squeezed. It was all I could do not to scream. I was sure it would leave a mark.
Finally, the plane leveled off, and Willie released the death grip on my arm.
Presently, the captain spoke over the intercom. “We have reached our cruising altitude of thirty-two thousand feet. It should be a smooth ride to Dallas. The temperature in Dallas is seventy-nine degrees with partly sunny skies. Enjoy your flight.”
Willie whispered in my ear, “How much is thirtytwo thousand feet?”
“That’s about six miles.”
“Up in de air?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Willie just closed his eyes, and I think he was muttering a prayer.
The flight attendant beverages were to be served. reached Mary’s aisle, she ordered a diet coke. The attendant was about to move on when Mary asked, “What about nuts? Don’t I get a bag of nuts?” announced that When the cart
“No, ma’am, we don’t serve nuts anymore.”
“Okay then, how about some pretzels?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Kansas City to Dallas is a short flight, and we only serve beverages.”
“Well damn!”
Yes, Mary, flying ain’t what it used to be.
About a half hour into our flight, Mary leaned over the aisle. “Walt, which way to the can?”
I pointed the way, and Mary shuffled down the aisle.
About ten minutes passed, and I heard a loud buzzer at the rear of the plane. A man jumped from his seat and headed toward the lavatory. I looked back just in time to see Mary backed up against the wall with the man in her face.
Short Stories To Tickle Your Funnybone Page 4
