We ventured out in the rain to Panera Bread for dinner. Kiddo drove. Once or twice, he had to brake hard (following too close for comfort), and I told him he was gonna scare Daddy, and The D said, "He's doin' all right." This from the man who accused me of driving on the wrong side of the road (I wasn't) and who starts telling me where to turn a quarter mile before we get there.
So we got to Panera and I helped Daddy settle on a tuna salad sandwich and a cup of creamy tomato soup. Ordered his usual unsweetened tea. After I paid, I was walking past the serving counter and they had his soup and sandwich and my asian chicken salad ready. So I started to pick the plates up, and dude morphed into the Soup Nazi. He told me they would buzz the thingy when it was ready. I said, "This part is ready." He repeated himself. Before I had a chance to get pissed off, The D appeared and said he wanted lemon with his tea. So I headed to the drink station with him, and there was a bucket of lemon slices. But no fork or tongs. So I went back to rude dude and told him this. He said, "There should be something out there." I said, "Well, there's not." He looked at me like I had failed a polygraph and begrudgingly handed me a plastic fork.
The D was waiting for me at the lemons and I gave him the fork. He said
"I'm not eating those things. They're garbage." I have to admit, they looked pretty bad - brown and smushed. So I dug around and found two slices that didn't look like they'd been squeezed and retrieved from someone's tea. He refused them.
So I walked past rude dude to the front and before I could ask for the manager, I was intercepted by someone with something about training on his badge. Trainer, trainee? Not sure. Told him about the lemon problem. He said he'd handle it. Rude dude came running over saying something, but I just walked away. Maybe he thought I was telling on him. Which I was.
So I sat down with Kiddo and Daddy and his lemon-less tea. Our food came then (RD probably spit in mine). I was waiting for Trainer/ee to bring fresh lemons to our table as I'd requested, but he didn't show. Kiddo had pushed the tables closer so I had to squeeze through without getting my ass in the soup or knocking over the damn tea. Lemonhead had arrived with a new pot of lemons. He probably just stirred them up so the less brown ones were on top. He even had a fork in there. So I got a couple great looking slices for The D and delivered them to him on a cup lid. He squinted at them. I told him they were new. He said, "I need some..." I said, "Sweet & Low?" He said, "Yea." Since I'd just squeezed my ass between the tables again, I said, "You'll have to go get it yourself." Damn.
He got back and fixed his tea. I asked him how his tuna sandwich was and he looked at Kiddo, grinned and said, "It's a tuna sandwich." I said, "How's your tomato soup?" "It's all right."
We finished eating and Kiddo got a go box for my excess salad. I asked Daddy if he wanted to take his bread and he picked it up and dropped it on the plate (it sounded like a rock) and said, "It's hard." I'd asked for something less crusty and the girl said the honey wheat was soft. Wrong.
So we trudged to the car and I told Kiddo to take us to Ben & Jerry's. Traffic was bad so we had to take some short-cuts. When we were almost there, I asked The D if he knew where we were going and he said, "In circles."
We went in and there were hoards of Hebrew-speaking people around the counters, so I had to crane my neck to read the names of the ice creams. Plus, it was like translating Hebrew to put the stupid B&J ice cream names into words The D could understand. I slowed down at Butter Pecan and two labels later, he decided on the BP. I knew he would. He got it in a cone. I got chocolate peanut butter swirl in a cone. Kiddo had Cherry Garcia in a cup. Funny, the grownups eating their ice cream from cones. It's better that way. I told about how, when I was a kid, Daddy would lick the drips from my ice cream cones. Sweet memory.
Then D asked Kiddo when he was going back to school. After K said "Sunday" three times, The D hollered, "Sunday?" with a look of shock on his face. I said, "Yes, Daddy, this is just spring break." Kiddo said he'd be back for Easter. That was news to me.
Oh, my. All of a sudden I'm exhausted. I have work to do, but I think I'm going to curl up on the sofa under a warm blanket and watch tv until I fall asleep. The bulimic cat is waiting for me...
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