A weighty issue

A little more than a week ago, Zoe and I went out shopping after work/school, for picture frames actually, but we ended up with a living room set.

But that the fact that I spend too much money when I'm down is not the point of this story.

After this particular shopping trip, we were out at Robinson, and I wanted to go to Don Pablo's. I was in the mood for Mexican.

"No," Zoe said.

"No? But they have tacos!!!"

"Eat N Park."

Grrrrr. So, I relented, because I had just dragged my kid on an impromptu trip through a furniture store and barked at her anytime she looked at anything, and because a salad bar was probably a lot healthier than the enchiladas my stomach was screaming for.

I tried to navigate to the Robinson Eat N Park, came pretty close but completely miscalculated the busy corner it was on, and convinced Zoe we needed to go to the Eat N Park close to our house.

"There it is, MOMMMMM! You're PASSING it."

"The one by our house is better."

"OK."

So, it's pushing 8 by the time we get to the restaurant. We are hungry. We are seated, and we fill out every single game on the kids' menu and no one has even so much as taken our drink order. And I'm pissed.

I'm the kind of pissed where, if I do actually try to accost a waiter and get some food, I might be frothing at the mouth.

So I explain to Zoe that we are NOT giving these people our money, scoop up my hysterical child, and proceed to the Wendy's a few blocks away, where the service really wasn't much better. I could hear the employees swearing at each other in the back, our order was messed up, and the cashier was rude as all hell.

"We don't got any more potatoes. And we're outta cheese."

THEY WERE OUT OF CHEESE, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. And there wasn't a clean table in the place.

I thought I had put that evening behind me, but today we were driving back from the grocery store, and just as we were passing the infamous Eat N Park, Zoe says from the back seat: "Do we have a waiter?"

"A waiter??" And I could feel all that ill will rising up in me again, and thinking she was going to ask if we could eat there again, I was trying to keep the venom under control and come up with a script that didn't include swear words.

"Yes, a waiter," she says. "Do we have one?"

"What do you mean, a waiter?" I ask, buying time.

"A WAITER, Mom. Like the thing Pap Pap has. You step on it and it tells you your weight."

I could feel my pursed lips relax. "A scale? No Zoe, we don't have a scale."