A dinner to remember

Last night we had dinner with a couple of our friends. And honestly, it was one of the most bizarre evenings in recent memory.

Let me set the scene for you:

We arrived at the lakeside restaurant around 7:30 and followed the hostess through a maze of umbrellas, tables, and decks to find our table. Once we got to our table, she realized that someone else had been seated there. She then instructed us to just find our own table. I was a bit puzzled by this, since I had no idea how we were even supposed to get back to the front of the restaurant, much less to a different deck to find a different table.

We finally just started wandering through the levels until we found a suitable table and she seated us.

So we waited.

And waited some more.

We waited for so long that I began to wonder if the hostess had actually told anyone that we had been seated at a new table.

After quite a while, our waitress appeared and took our drink order. And the dinner experience went into full swing.

More minutes passed....and finally our drinks arrived. So we put in our order:

• I ordered chicken enchiladas with no onions.
• Amar ordered fish tacos.
• Our friends decided to split bean and cheese nachos and 2 beef tacos.
• And we got some queso to split for the table.

There were some other folks sitting nearby, and occasionally I would see that they were listening to us passionately debate the NBA playoffs and past NBA greats....

The chips arrived, sans queso.

We snacked on the chips for a bit, and finally the queso arrived, as did our water. And an iced tea here and there. 3 of us were already midway through our margaritas at this point, so the water was much anticipated, since it was about 100 degrees outside on the decks.

So at this point, we'd been seated for about 45 minutes. We had put in our order, and had so far only received drinks, chips and queso. And the folks around us seemed more interested in our conversation than their own.

Moving on....

A bus boy, probably a sophomore in high school, arrived with our food: cheese enchiladas, beef nachos, fish tacos and beef tacos. 50% accurate. I told him that I had ordered chicken, not cheese. And our friends indicated that their nachos were wrong as well.

The bus boy stammered...."well, is ANY of this right?" and stormed off towards the kitchen. Then our waitress came by to check on us, "Is everything ok?" Actually, Mary, no it's not. We told her what had happened, and she and I had about a 5 minute discussion about chicken vs. cheese enchiladas. I assured her it was no big deal, that I was fine with the cheese, and we both agreed to move on, even though my plate had also arrived with a garnish of 1 crinkle fry. Odd, I thought.

About 5 minutes later, another plate of nachos arrived. The exact same plate of nachos that they had brought 5 minutes earlier. The exact wrong nachos.

So Mary came back. She apologized profusely. And then we spilled a glass of tea. Chaos was breaking out at all levels. Once Mary left, the guys started trying my enchiladas and indicated that they were horrible and burned.

Finally, a third plate of nachos came to the table, and they were a lot closer to the actual order, but the beans were wrong. Our friends started eating anyways, since who knew what would come out of the kitchen a fourth time.

Drinks spilled. The sun setting. The nachos finally sort of right. The enchiladas burned. The evening winding down. Waiting for the check.

Still waiting for the check.

Calling out to Mary, and waiting for the check.

Finally, Mary comes out to us. It's now about 2 hours after we initially sat down, and we're ready to leave. She again apologizes for all of the various missteps from the evening, and tells us about her 2 months of employment at this restaurant and how she had been covering for someone who was supposed to have our table, and on and on.

She hands us the check and says, "By the way, the couple that was sitting next to you wanted to pay for your nachos, since they saw the whole thing and really thought that you all handled it so gracefully."

Our mouths dropped open. Yes, we were all expecting to get at least something free, but the fact that our fellow diner would want to cover it just really surprised us.

We divvied up the bill and sent her off. And we waited. And waited some more.

By now, it was quite late, and most of the umbrellas had been taken down, since the wind was picking up. There was 1 giant umbrella that apparently had been left standing, right behind our friends. I was in mid-sentence, telling some story, when in slow motion, the umbrella started to give in to the wind....and all I could do was yell "WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT!" and throw my arms in the air, flailing about trying to stop the tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

But no. It fell. It crashed down just behind my friend's head, barely missing him. At this point, we were just about the last customers there, and the check still wasn't back. The bus boys rushed over to try to fix the umbrella, and Amar jumped up to help. And then he remembered that he recently broke a clavicle, thus rendering his assistance a little diminished.

Whew. We made it out alive.

• 2.5 hours later
• 3 orders of nachos
• Wrong enchiladas
• Spilled tea
• Wrong table
• Kamikaze umbrella
• Burned enchiladas
• Random crinkle fry
• Sllllooooowwwww service
• And lots of laughs