Get Back in the Kitchen!: Thursday, after another grueling week of academic bullshitting, I thought it would be nice to have dinner off-campus; the food served here, despite the $50,000 tuition we all pay, is best left to rats and people who already firmly believe there is no God. I asked Woman, Bring Me a Beer! to dine with me, and we set forth merrily in pursuit of a meal that our stomachs wouldn't reject as poison.
Woman, Bring Me a Beer!: I was just coming off an extremely tedious day at work. The entire shift consisted of my coworkers playing games with each other on their shiny new iPod Touches and my boss telling me if I did all the paperwork for the entire office, he would give me an iPod Touch. Which might seem like an exciting offer until you know that "all the paperwork" means more pages of data entry than Thomas Paine had common sense. When Get Back in the Kitchen! offered me free food, the kindness was enough to make me sob in relief. At least a good dinner would salvage the day.
GBK: We walked first to our favorite little restaurant just a short ways from campus. Though the sound of raucous drunken laughter and the smell of Lysol-covered vomit had scared us out of patronizing that restaurant until we were brave sophomores, we came to love its darkness, its leaking pipes, its moldy and puzzling art. However, on Thursday night, when dreams of cheap American food danced through our heads, we could not find a single person to serve us. This restaurant is notoriously short-staffed, but generally, a pleasant bartender or cook will come to seat you within a few minutes of your arrival. We waited and waited and waited, reflecting our faces in the shiny mirror—hoping someone would come feed us.
WBMB: Not only did we wait—we paced. We did the time honored attention stunt: walk from one end of the hall to the other, sigh loudly, make large gestures, dance back and forth on your feet, poke your head into the kitchen, and repeat until served. One pair of semi-sober men in the bar watched our routine, smirked, and continued to slobber down their food.
GBK: In the bar area, a dozen bearded-faced drunkards were laughing merrily at something; the bartender, an obvious puppet of the new management, looked right through us, and continued serving beer to crazy men. The bar area was so testosterone-filled and delirious we feared to enter it; we thus waited several more minutes, with waning patience, before finally deciding to vamoose.
WBMB: I still wish we had walked into the kitchen, beaten some pots, and played with their cash register before we left. I'm sure they wouldn't have noticed. Instead, as GBK said, we left. As we stumbled up the sidewalk towards our next option, the problem occurred to me! I would have been perfectly comfortable wading through the roaring bar to demand food from the bartender if there had been women there. GBK agreed. The problem is that the women of this town weren't getting drunk at 6pm on a weekday like the men. Their men probably demanded that they drink themselves under the table at home, thus never needing to leave the kitchen.
GBK: We both decided our discomfort was a woman's issue, and that I would lament the fact that there were no female drunkards in my next Women's and Gender Studies class. We next walked to another American-fare restaurant just a few minutes away. This restaurant is always packed; strange, because the food they serve is lackluster at best. Yet, Thursday, fortuitously, they were able to seat WBMB and me immediately. We opened our fancy redesigned menus and were stunned by the rise in prices. I, for one, had no intention of paying ten dollars for a dry hamburger—the only edible thing on their menu. I wanted to bounce, but WBMB, of better breeding than I, insisted we stay.
WBMB: The entire idea of leaving seemed too awkward to me. We had two ways out. One, to take the back door just ten feet away from our table. That would have required passing the hang out spot of all the waiters. We needed to time it so they were all working, which is impossible at that place since the waiters never serve you. I think they earn their money for the skill at which they can glide through the restaurant without actually pausing at a single table. The other way involved walking through the entire building to the front exit and being wished a good night by the hosting staff. How could I reply to that, "Fuck you, I hate you and your overpriced slop?"
GBK: We decided to split a dessert—which was still obscenely expensive for what it was. While we ate, we drew on the paper on the table. "Heaven is just one jump away," I wrote, and WBMB drew a happy little man flying from a cliff, and then proceeded to draw several knives. Indeed, we were joyous little diners.
WBMB: The presence of crayons and chocolate improved my mood dramatically. We considered leaving the art for our waiter, but worried he wouldn't pause to fully enjoy it. So using a hair-tie, we rolled it up and left happier than we came in—though also closer to poverty and still just as hungry.
GBK: We left the restaurant with our crude art, after I tipped badly—WBMB commented after the fact that it was a pity I hadn't tipped as to make our dessert come to a total of $6.66. Undeniably, the Devil was stabbing us with his pitchfork that night. After our dessert, we went to find dinner, and decided on a cheap faux-Mexican restaurant. We decided to take our orders to go, as we still had much studying to do that night.
WBMB: I never had much faith in these particular burrito makers, but it was a quiet night and our two orders were literally the only ones in the entire store. I watched them throw them together, and snickered a little as one worker failed to roll up GBK's even after three solid minutes of struggling, but overall felt confident that while dinner wouldn't be good, it would end my hunger without withering my soul, (as campus food is wont to do).
GBK: We got back to our dormitory and opened our respective burritos to find that the lovely people at the restaurant horribly botched our orders. WBMB had wanted chicken on her fruity little burrito, and I had wanted steak on my traditional one. I do not know about other people, but there is something about expecting steak and getting chicken that makes one want to weep—it's positively un-American. And for her part, WBMB did not seem too pleased, either.
WBMB: Steak is grisly. Steak is heavy. Who wants steak with mango salsa? Who? We had such simple orders. Give me chicken, give her steak with extra cheese. Instead I got steak and she got chicken with no cheese. The only way they could have failed more is if they forgot that burritos come with tortillas. Maybe I should be grateful I didn't end up with a tostada?
GBK: After our sad little dinner, WBMB and I read for our poetry class the next day, and were driven nearly to violence. There is something about the combination of the insanity of Sylvia Plath and an unhappy tummy that doesn't go well together. When we read "Tulips," the two of us could not help but cuss: "You fucking bitch! I would have liked tulips if I were in the hospital!" What we were really saying is that we hoped someone would bring us some hospital food, or John the Baptist's head, or a road-killed raccoon, so that we could actually eat something. But alas, such was not our luck, so we were resigned to spend the rest of the night shrieking bad Plath poetry at anyone who came near our study area, and wondering why the hell this was our life.
WBMB: I think the worst part came the next day in English class when our professor spent the entire period talking about her love of Sylvia Plath. If insanity is what makes you great, then I guess this Ivy League education will ultimately be worthwhile.
Woman, Bring Me a Beer!: I was just coming off an extremely tedious day at work. The entire shift consisted of my coworkers playing games with each other on their shiny new iPod Touches and my boss telling me if I did all the paperwork for the entire office, he would give me an iPod Touch. Which might seem like an exciting offer until you know that "all the paperwork" means more pages of data entry than Thomas Paine had common sense. When Get Back in the Kitchen! offered me free food, the kindness was enough to make me sob in relief. At least a good dinner would salvage the day.
GBK: We walked first to our favorite little restaurant just a short ways from campus. Though the sound of raucous drunken laughter and the smell of Lysol-covered vomit had scared us out of patronizing that restaurant until we were brave sophomores, we came to love its darkness, its leaking pipes, its moldy and puzzling art. However, on Thursday night, when dreams of cheap American food danced through our heads, we could not find a single person to serve us. This restaurant is notoriously short-staffed, but generally, a pleasant bartender or cook will come to seat you within a few minutes of your arrival. We waited and waited and waited, reflecting our faces in the shiny mirror—hoping someone would come feed us.
WBMB: Not only did we wait—we paced. We did the time honored attention stunt: walk from one end of the hall to the other, sigh loudly, make large gestures, dance back and forth on your feet, poke your head into the kitchen, and repeat until served. One pair of semi-sober men in the bar watched our routine, smirked, and continued to slobber down their food.
GBK: In the bar area, a dozen bearded-faced drunkards were laughing merrily at something; the bartender, an obvious puppet of the new management, looked right through us, and continued serving beer to crazy men. The bar area was so testosterone-filled and delirious we feared to enter it; we thus waited several more minutes, with waning patience, before finally deciding to vamoose.
WBMB: I still wish we had walked into the kitchen, beaten some pots, and played with their cash register before we left. I'm sure they wouldn't have noticed. Instead, as GBK said, we left. As we stumbled up the sidewalk towards our next option, the problem occurred to me! I would have been perfectly comfortable wading through the roaring bar to demand food from the bartender if there had been women there. GBK agreed. The problem is that the women of this town weren't getting drunk at 6pm on a weekday like the men. Their men probably demanded that they drink themselves under the table at home, thus never needing to leave the kitchen.
GBK: We both decided our discomfort was a woman's issue, and that I would lament the fact that there were no female drunkards in my next Women's and Gender Studies class. We next walked to another American-fare restaurant just a few minutes away. This restaurant is always packed; strange, because the food they serve is lackluster at best. Yet, Thursday, fortuitously, they were able to seat WBMB and me immediately. We opened our fancy redesigned menus and were stunned by the rise in prices. I, for one, had no intention of paying ten dollars for a dry hamburger—the only edible thing on their menu. I wanted to bounce, but WBMB, of better breeding than I, insisted we stay.
WBMB: The entire idea of leaving seemed too awkward to me. We had two ways out. One, to take the back door just ten feet away from our table. That would have required passing the hang out spot of all the waiters. We needed to time it so they were all working, which is impossible at that place since the waiters never serve you. I think they earn their money for the skill at which they can glide through the restaurant without actually pausing at a single table. The other way involved walking through the entire building to the front exit and being wished a good night by the hosting staff. How could I reply to that, "Fuck you, I hate you and your overpriced slop?"
GBK: We decided to split a dessert—which was still obscenely expensive for what it was. While we ate, we drew on the paper on the table. "Heaven is just one jump away," I wrote, and WBMB drew a happy little man flying from a cliff, and then proceeded to draw several knives. Indeed, we were joyous little diners.
WBMB: The presence of crayons and chocolate improved my mood dramatically. We considered leaving the art for our waiter, but worried he wouldn't pause to fully enjoy it. So using a hair-tie, we rolled it up and left happier than we came in—though also closer to poverty and still just as hungry.
GBK: We left the restaurant with our crude art, after I tipped badly—WBMB commented after the fact that it was a pity I hadn't tipped as to make our dessert come to a total of $6.66. Undeniably, the Devil was stabbing us with his pitchfork that night. After our dessert, we went to find dinner, and decided on a cheap faux-Mexican restaurant. We decided to take our orders to go, as we still had much studying to do that night.
WBMB: I never had much faith in these particular burrito makers, but it was a quiet night and our two orders were literally the only ones in the entire store. I watched them throw them together, and snickered a little as one worker failed to roll up GBK's even after three solid minutes of struggling, but overall felt confident that while dinner wouldn't be good, it would end my hunger without withering my soul, (as campus food is wont to do).
GBK: We got back to our dormitory and opened our respective burritos to find that the lovely people at the restaurant horribly botched our orders. WBMB had wanted chicken on her fruity little burrito, and I had wanted steak on my traditional one. I do not know about other people, but there is something about expecting steak and getting chicken that makes one want to weep—it's positively un-American. And for her part, WBMB did not seem too pleased, either.
WBMB: Steak is grisly. Steak is heavy. Who wants steak with mango salsa? Who? We had such simple orders. Give me chicken, give her steak with extra cheese. Instead I got steak and she got chicken with no cheese. The only way they could have failed more is if they forgot that burritos come with tortillas. Maybe I should be grateful I didn't end up with a tostada?
GBK: After our sad little dinner, WBMB and I read for our poetry class the next day, and were driven nearly to violence. There is something about the combination of the insanity of Sylvia Plath and an unhappy tummy that doesn't go well together. When we read "Tulips," the two of us could not help but cuss: "You fucking bitch! I would have liked tulips if I were in the hospital!" What we were really saying is that we hoped someone would bring us some hospital food, or John the Baptist's head, or a road-killed raccoon, so that we could actually eat something. But alas, such was not our luck, so we were resigned to spend the rest of the night shrieking bad Plath poetry at anyone who came near our study area, and wondering why the hell this was our life.
WBMB: I think the worst part came the next day in English class when our professor spent the entire period talking about her love of Sylvia Plath. If insanity is what makes you great, then I guess this Ivy League education will ultimately be worthwhile.
~Get Back in the Kitchen! & Woman, Bring Me a Beer!
0 comments:
Post a Comment