I usually post in the Ladies who Lunch topic but today Kerry suggested this might be more appropriate. Warning: before any of you get your knickers in a knot, please know that I am old and crippled and hence have earned the right to recognize others of my ilk. I will be 75 this week and walk, only barely, with a cane.
As we arrived at the restaurant I noticed a bus clearly marked Non-emergency Medical Transport. I thought it just a little bit odd. This was not the kind of restaurant one would normally bring residents of a nursing home in a group. Oh how wrong I was in that assumption.
As soon as we entered the restaurant, the server led us to a table already occupied by a number of people most of whom were even older and more crippled than I. Perhaps she believed that I was part of the group and had brought along my very own handler, @Kerry Beal.
As those of us who are old and crippled are wont to do, my first stop would have to be the restrooms.
In attempting to vacate the restroom and return to the table I was thoroughly blocked by a gentleman in a wheelchair and his female carer. While they had an interesting discussion about whether he did or did not need to use the facilities, his helper removed both of the foot rests from the wheelchair. She did not just fold them back, she literally disassembled those two sides of the wheelchair. So now I was blocked by a man in a wheelchair, his helper and the excess pieces of his wheelchair. (I cannot imagine anything more awful for an elderly man than to be taken to a restroom in a public place by a female care giver who is not a relative and did not even appear to be someone who knew him well.)
After more conversation between the gentleman and his helper it was somehow determined in a manner that was beyond my comprehension that he did not need to use the facilities.
Now began the process of attempting to reassemble the damn wheelchair. I could sense my warm sake getting very cold. I asked the helper if there was someway I could perhaps just squeeze by. She was very accommodating but I was now facing a very large, very able bodied, very athletic man who was on his way to use the facilities and didn’t need my help or anyone else’s help. Fortunately he grasped the predicament and backed off so I could escape.
Back at the table it was obvious that this was going to be a long and painful ordering process. Until everyone had placed their order nothing was going to happen. Again we should have made our escape by paying for tea and sake and heading over to Popeyes. Kerry made some comment about hoping nobody needed CPR because she wasn’t feeling up to it today.
Eventually service began. The other guests had not even the faintest idea of what to do with miso soup, the strange looking tea cups or how this whole affair was going to result in them getting anything at all to eat.
When the chef began his spiel he was met with blank faces interrupted occasionally by horror as he conjured up flame and smoke. If he had had any idea in his life of becoming a standup comedian this would have persuaded him to take up hog wrangling instead. The only time he got any kind of smile out of anyone was when he took out his little squeeze toy to pee on the flames. I swear if he had jumped on top of the flat top and begun stripping he would still not have got a rise out of anybody (except perhaps me and Kerry).
We missed a photograph of the pathetic salads but you all know what they look like. This was the miso soup served with a soup spoon which only frazzled the other elderly people at the table. I suspect they were also actually horrified that Kerry and I picked up our soup bowls and drank from them.
Shared appetizer of shrimp and vegetable “tempura”.
The mixed vegetables which were part of everyone’s meal.
The flaming onion volcano.
My plate with rice and vegetables and two dipping sauces before the steak arrived.
To all my friends who care about me , when I reach that stage of old age and decrepitude which is just around the corner and you feel the need to show me that you still care, pick up a nice meal somewhere and bring it to my home where I can eat it in comfort and without embarrassment.
