Olive Garden

Every now and then as a treat, Hubby and I order take-out from Olive Garden. My two-year-old has been sick all weekend so tonight was one of those nights when we needed something yummy. However, I ordered dinner, not drama...

I ordered one child's cheese pizza, one seafood alfredo pasta, and one five-cheese baked ziti pasta (we all know that diets are for Monday through Friday only). When I got there the woman gave me my total: $54.30. I said, "Yeah... um, no." And then, "Really? Fifty-four dollars?" To which she responded with an eye-roll and a sigh and repeated my order back to me: "Two seafood pastas, one five-cheese baked ziti, and one child's pizza." I said something about how I only ordered one seafood pasta, and she insisted that I distinctly said "two" and that she had repeated it back to me when we were on the phone and I agreed to it. *silence*

Then, "Okay, well I didn't hear that and we only need one seafood pasta please." This was met with another eye-roll and an exasperated request for me to wait while she gets the Manager to remove the extra pasta dish from my order. Then a couple of other women that worked there whispered amongst themselves (which was so obvious that it was about me) and finally the Manager returned. She rung me up and I paid, and then had to wait for my food to be ready.

While I was waiting, an older gentleman was also picking up his food and the snotty check-out woman accidentally called him "Jennifer" (lucky me) so they had a little joke going on. And then the man turns to me and starts this conversation: "That'd be nice if I was a woman. I've been told when we die we all come back as the opposite sex, and then I could come back as a Jennifer. But you know I think I'd rather come back as a whale. Did you know that they keep the same mate for life?! There's no divorce or any of that nonsense. And the eagles, I could come back as an eagle..." He pauses and waits for me to respond. Meanwhile I'm having the hardest time trying not to stare at his wandering eye (seriously, couldn't tell which eye he was using to look at me), and trying not to gag from his B.O., which was hard considering he was about six inches from me. Seriously, during the eagle part his arm hairs touched my sleeve so I pretended to be interested in a nearby flyer so I could move over.

Since I felt forced to encourage this behavior, I said, "Oh? An eagle?" Which of course only led him on. "Why, eagles fly from country to country. If I came back as an eagle then think of how much of the world I'd be able to see!"

Just then my food came out (thank goodness)... but it was minus one salad. When I--very nicely--pointed out the error, she hastily lifted up the receipt and said that when I "changed my order" (LIAR) it cancelled one of the salads. So then I puffed up my feathers and said, "Regardless, there's still two adults entrees in here and only one salad. So I think I'm supposed to have another salad." And believe it or not, the smelly, twisted-eyed, old man has moved up to stand next to me and is still lecturing me on the lifestyles of the eagle.

I swear I almost screamed, "I just want my food!!! Is this my punishment for going off my diet? Just hand over the breadsticks and no one will get hurt!" I didn't, of course. After thinking such rude thoughts about this elderly ol' fart, I felt a little bad so as I was leaving I turned to him and said, "Have a nice evening." He nodded at me and wished me the same. Too late!