Thursday March 3rd, 2011

The exercise:

Our topic for today is: the restaurant.

I'm still recovering from this stupid cold... but I can't really complain, since Kat is too and she's had it for way longer than me. Which... is not very encouraging.

Mine:

The menu is illegible,
The waiters are deaf;
And please don't get me started
On that bloody chef.

The other customers are boorish,
The special is mouse;
I can get better food
Without leaving the house.

Is that the bathroom I smell,
Or that man over there?
At least now you can't say
I don't take you anywhere.

3 comments:

Greg said...

Ever the romantic, Marc? Still, if you're both still suffering with that cold, perhaps now's the not time to be going to nice restaurants!
I really like the poem, it tells a little story in very little space and is amusing too. I have a quibble with the second line of the second verse though, it's too short for the rhythm. Perhaps if you change mouse to dormouse it would be less jarring. (Also, as a culinary note, the Romans did eat dormice, so it could plausibly be a special.)

The restaurant
Valentine's day. I'd stupidly told my date she could pick the restaurant, so perhaps I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was. Yes, she had picked the trendiest, most expensive one within a five mile radius -- that I was expecting. But to pick a restaurant where the food was served in pitch darkness?
I stabbed downwards with my fork. I'd figured out it was a fork by feeling it until I found the tines, and I wasn't sure it wasn't the fish fork. I stabbed at where I hoped the table was anyway. It screamed.
Well, actually, it was another woman, who my date was entertaining under the table; between them they'd pushed the table out of the way enough for me to mistake them for dinner. The restaurant lights went up, revealing them in flagrante delicto, with my fork sticking out of a rump.
The lights also revealed the mouse dropping and dead cockroaches all over the floor.
I left, alone, without paying the bill -- my date could sort that out for herself. McDonald's beckoned.

summerfield said...

where are these strange restaurants?

----

After a frustrating afternoon looking for a decent restaurant that's open, we arrive at the "Lick-a-chick". Despite its name, the place looks clean and they have a patio that overlooks the Bay of Fundy. We had to go down quite a few steps to get to the restaurant. There is a sign just outside its doors that says "Home-made Blueberry Pie - to die for!"

Waiter: Sorry, we're not open.

Us: But the doors are open.

Waiter: We don't close. But we're not open right now. Chef is still baking. We open in a little while.

Us: Can we stick around?

Waiter: (shrugs shoulders and waves hand as if to say, "suit yourself"

Us: Is the blueberry pie really good?

Waiter: Oh, yeah! freshly baked. It's the chef's specialty.

Presently, we are startled by a loud scream, a loud thud and the sound of heavy things falling down on the concrete steps. We stand up to look. And there it is: a woman, wearing chef's hat and uniform, down on the ground, screaming and swearing profanities, and scattered all over the steps, are about twenty boxes of frozen President's Choice Blueberry Pie.

Marc said...

Greg - good point about that line. I just noticed that when I read it I put in a slight pause without even thinking about it.

That is one heck of a restaurant. Seems like it would be destined for a lot of dropped plates.

Summerfield - in the weird, wonderful world of our imaginations :)

You know, I'm always suspicious of things like that. I hope that was a bit of fiction, otherwise I shall be even more suspicious.