SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Please mark your calendars for next month, September, on Friday the 13th, for Prehistoric Creatures Day. In fact, EVERY Friday 13th is Prehistoric Creatures Day, so go through your calendars now and mark off any and all Friday the 13ths.
I'll wait.
Perhaps the most touching remembrance I've ever seen of this day was when I was working as a waiter at an upscale-casual suburban steakhouse. One Friday the 13th, probably a half-hour before I was due to leave for the night, my manager comes up and tells me to take table thirteen. "Have fun with it," he tells me.
So I go over to greet table thirteen - it's a man and a woman, maybe in their mid-forties.
And twelve stuffed dinosaurs.
Friday the 13th, I was told, is Prehistoric Creatures Day. If you have any prehistoric creatures in your house, you have to take them out to a nice dinner on Friday the 13th, or else they will become angry and rampage through your house, creating a huge mess. So this couple, not wanting to spend the next day cleaning up after a squadron of angry reptilians, had brought their brood of dinosaurs out to dinner.
Most of them were kind of small (the kind of stuffed animal you could put on your desk at work), but there was one rather large triceratops, to whom I offered a booster seat. The rest of the dinosaurs sat on the table.
A dinosaur ordered a bottle of (expensive) wine.
A dinosaur tasted the wine, and declared it good.
The man and woman ordered their respective entrees, with plenty of side dishes to feed the rest of the crew.
Somebody else dropped off the food, and when I came by a few minutes later to make sure everything was okay, the table had been rearranged to accommodate all of the dinosaurs and their different culinary preferences. The carnivores were positioned around the steak. The herbivores gathered near the broccoli. The fish-eaters were crowding the fried lobster tail.
Everybody was a fan of the bread, and I brought over a refill.
While they were eating, I went over to my manager. "Manager," says I. "These are by far the coolest, weirdest people we have ever had in here ever. We have to buy them a free dessert."
Manager agrees, and so after the plates have been cleared, I go back to the table with the dessert menu, and tell them that, in honor of their special day, we would like to offer them a complimentary dessert.
One dinosaur -I think he was a brontosaurus- was very excited by this. Aided by the man, the dinosaur runs very excitedly to the end of the table, eager to look over our desserts! He loves dessert! He loves - oh no! All of a sudden, the chipper brontosaurus wilts in the man's hands, and drags back to his place on the table. The man explains "He's sad because he doesn't read English. But dont worry, we'll read it to him."
They ordered dessert, and everyone enjoyed it.
I forget if the man or the woman paid the bill - I just know it wasn't a dinosaur, which makes sense as it was their day. They were being treated.
I'll wait.
Perhaps the most touching remembrance I've ever seen of this day was when I was working as a waiter at an upscale-casual suburban steakhouse. One Friday the 13th, probably a half-hour before I was due to leave for the night, my manager comes up and tells me to take table thirteen. "Have fun with it," he tells me.
So I go over to greet table thirteen - it's a man and a woman, maybe in their mid-forties.
And twelve stuffed dinosaurs.
Friday the 13th, I was told, is Prehistoric Creatures Day. If you have any prehistoric creatures in your house, you have to take them out to a nice dinner on Friday the 13th, or else they will become angry and rampage through your house, creating a huge mess. So this couple, not wanting to spend the next day cleaning up after a squadron of angry reptilians, had brought their brood of dinosaurs out to dinner.
Most of them were kind of small (the kind of stuffed animal you could put on your desk at work), but there was one rather large triceratops, to whom I offered a booster seat. The rest of the dinosaurs sat on the table.
A dinosaur ordered a bottle of (expensive) wine.
A dinosaur tasted the wine, and declared it good.
The man and woman ordered their respective entrees, with plenty of side dishes to feed the rest of the crew.
Somebody else dropped off the food, and when I came by a few minutes later to make sure everything was okay, the table had been rearranged to accommodate all of the dinosaurs and their different culinary preferences. The carnivores were positioned around the steak. The herbivores gathered near the broccoli. The fish-eaters were crowding the fried lobster tail.
Everybody was a fan of the bread, and I brought over a refill.
While they were eating, I went over to my manager. "Manager," says I. "These are by far the coolest, weirdest people we have ever had in here ever. We have to buy them a free dessert."
Manager agrees, and so after the plates have been cleared, I go back to the table with the dessert menu, and tell them that, in honor of their special day, we would like to offer them a complimentary dessert.
One dinosaur -I think he was a brontosaurus- was very excited by this. Aided by the man, the dinosaur runs very excitedly to the end of the table, eager to look over our desserts! He loves dessert! He loves - oh no! All of a sudden, the chipper brontosaurus wilts in the man's hands, and drags back to his place on the table. The man explains "He's sad because he doesn't read English. But dont worry, we'll read it to him."
They ordered dessert, and everyone enjoyed it.
I forget if the man or the woman paid the bill - I just know it wasn't a dinosaur, which makes sense as it was their day. They were being treated.
