The non-gourmets that we are, Frank and I often take our meals at a variety of restaurants around the metro Detroit area. Since we eat out as often as we do, we're not dining fancy. The bright side is that we keep our budget in tact (just go along with it). The oh-so dark side is that we have to endure the affliction found at all lower-mid-priced restaurants:
Birthday celebrations.
Not that I have anything against birthdays. As you may have read in an earlier post, I've already completed my birthday shopping and have even put in my cake order to Frank - Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe in chocolate with chocolate frosting from the can. (I'm counting down the days until I can have you, my sweet mix cake!) Which I plan to eat for breakfast out of the pan all week. No, I love birthdays. What I don't love is birthday songs. Sung by the wait staff. LOUDLY.
Last night we went to Red Robin. They have a yummy Cobb salad with avocados. (Good fats!) They also had a number of birthdays. And every celebrating girl and boy was inexplicably seated at surrounding tables. Every 10 minutes, a line of servers paraded to our area, clapping and yelling and singing their birthday wishes, drowning out our conversation, waking the baby and sending a shooting pain from my temple to my eye.
But Red Robin is tame compared to Texas Roadhouse.
Frank LOVES him some Texas Roadhouse. He'd eat there twice a week if I could endure it. The food is good. The bread is downright dreamy. But the production they put on for birthdays? I could lasso the entire wait staff and strangle them. Behold:
I'm pretty sure they only hire servers with strong enough diaphragms to carry their voices to every corner of the establishment. And the "yee haw"? Pain-ful.
One evening at the Roadhouse, I had to use the restroom and was delighted to hear I was missing a customary birthday shout out. The muffled voices I could discern from my stall were bearable. They got to the "yee haw" and I was positively ecstatic to be missing it. That is, until the woman in the stall next to me shrieked "YEE HAW!!!" at the top of her lungs, causing me to almost fall off the toilet.
The lesson? The more you loathe something, the more it follows you. Perhaps if I could learn to love the restaurant birthday ballad, everyone will start celebrating at home. With cake mix and frosting from the can.
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2 comments:
Once upon a time when Kev and I were dating and going to school, we were celebrating his birthday with free dessert at Big Boy. I left him alone at the table to use the restroom and they picked that moment to bring out his dessert and sing to him. While he sat ALL ALONE. When I got back, he was sitting there all sad and embarrassed with the dessert in front of him.
Oh my goodness! I just read your blog, and I love it! haha! You're hysterical. I'll definitely be reading your more often. hahaha!
:)
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