I was Hungry Til she Said Amputation of the Foot

The smell of fake doggy peanut butter Cheez Whiz smothering the bag full of $73 in doggy bones we had just purchased (see $73 in Dog Bones Later) must have awakened our appetites because suddenly my son and I are very hungry. We decide to eat at The Sawmill Cafe - a mix between Denny's and Applebee's. (Every time I would think, "I'd better not order the fish here!" I would see something, like the cozy stone fireplace, and change my mind - thus my combined Denny's/Applebee's official rating.)

Lucky for us we managed to hit The Early Bird Hour. Our presence forcefully plummeted the average mean age down about 60 years. "This is just like the dining room at Great-Grandma's retirement home!" my son exclaimed. Oh yes, lots and lots of walkers, oxygen tanks and hearing aids were out on display. No surprise though that said hearing aids weren't turned on. They never are. Just like walkers are usually carried rather than, well, walked with.

Neither of us mind dinner with the elderly. We are actually quite familiar with it due to, as my son pointed out, dinner at my grandma's. But the conversation at The Summit is usually fairly dignified whereas out at Mill Creek's Sawmill it seemed nothing but.

As I helped my son find hidden words in the word search puzzle provided by our adorable waitress, I started getting a headache listening to the woman at the table closest to us converse with her husband in the most grating, loud voice ever. And I use converse loosely because she was fully in charge of the discussion and he was allowed only a few grunts here and there.

You know that statistic everyone quotes these days about how women speak 20,000 words a day while men only speak 7,000? Turns out that statistic isn't true (See for yourself at http//itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003420.html) but whomever came up with it must have been friends with or counseled this couple.

Anyway . . . Yes, she was bugging me. No, not to the point where I needed to complain. I wouldn't have turned down some Advil to dull the pain in my temples though. I couldn't help but listen to her drone on about Sally's "loser" son who really is "such a loser." Apparently he is living in Sally's basement because he lost his job, is getting divorced and he really has no choice ever since they AMPUTATED HIS FOOT.

Come on! It is a restaurant. Talking loudly about foot amputation is NOT ACCEPTABLE. I can handle a lot (Have you ever heard the story of how I met my tapeworm, Fettucini, face-to-face?) but that pushed even my limit.

Thankfully, after arguing over the check with the aforementioned adorable waitress (The issue was simple: She'd brought them the wrong check and they were insisting she void the erroneous charges from their card. "Gladly," she kept telling them. "But there's nothing to void as you haven't given me a credit card yet."
Did you read that clearly? She had had yet to see their credit card so what charges did they want her to remove?

Thankfully, they slowly but surely carried their walkers out to their Buick, threw them in the trunk and drove off - on the wrong side of the road for as far as my eye could see.

My food was really good - when I re-heated it the next day for lunch.