Chris received a gift card I was surprised when we stepped inside. It's been years since I set foot in one of those restaurants. They have a bakery near the entrance where they have muffins the size of a human head. We couldn't even figure out what they were at first, they were so big -- as were most of the folks eating dinner in the restaurant, even including one waitress. I gotta hand it to her, she is way more mobile than I am though she easily had 100 pounds on me. I'm still whining about my knee pain, and this woman is running around waiting tables!
Just yesterday on the radio I heard Dr. Dean Edel say that inside every fat person is an Arnold Schwarcheneggar pleading to get out. Inside every fat person is a super strong person who's able to haul around all the extra weight on their bodies, and some do it with such ease, it's impressive. But if I put all the weight I've lost into some sort of backpack and tried to haul it around, I'd collapse. Come to think of it, if I had to haul around all the weight I've lost over the years, I'd need a freight liner.
A meeting of a local Goldwing group filled the banquet room next to the room where we were seated. All the folks in the Goldwing meeting were big. A woman just the other side of our Marie Callender-*decorative* style room window, took out some sort of stick (or maybe it was her fork) and started to scrape at her back. She was really into it - (Marie Callender's wants you to feel as if you're at home in their restaurant). I had to look away. I don't think this woman realized she was performing her hygienic ritual in full view of our table. We had the window view to her backside. I thought it was a strange thing to do in a restaurant. My mind started working. What is she scraping off? I prayed that whatever it was didn't fall off, land near the window and scramble off while we were getting ready to eat our dinner.
You can order salad at Marie Callender's. My salad arrived garnished with deep-fried green beans, dressing filling a gravy boat. The dressing was mayonnaise-y with something mixed in it that made the dressing too spicy. Molly had chicken pot pie because she is young. Chris ordered a reuben with fries because he's delusional. Molly liked her crust and said the "chicken was weird." Chris said his reuben was not that good. He dipped his fries in the mayonnaise-y filled gravy boat while Molly ate limp "baby" carrots and green-mucky looking "veggies." My salad was okay. I ate about ten bites, giving the rest to Chris who finished it. I also ordered a glass of very special Marie Callender Pinot Grigio 2018 that immediately dyed my chest a bright red color. (Thank you, menopause!)
A young mother in the banquet room held her tiny, maybe two week old baby. Mom was a big girl though the baby could have been a bookmark. When the mother left her booth, another guy wedged into her place. He looked as if he'd need a belly-horn (the belly version of a shoe-horn) to stuff himself into the same spot. He had no trouble filling up the entire side of the booth.
Not that many years ago I had my own trouble squeezing into restaurant booths. No complaints about knee pain back then. And here I was at Marie Callender's having a quasi-reunion dinner with some of my peeps and they were none the wiser for it.
I wonder how their knees hold up? And why are mine giving out under the pressure? How is it that these BIG folks can ride a Goldwing all day or do they? Only one of them brought his bike that night -- maybe it was too cold outside. Maybe they save their youth and vigor for sunny days on the weekend. Sometimes I think in mid-life, all these cars and motorcycles we buy are part of a costume anyway - as long as we can afford to get dressed up like that.
Sometimes I wonder if my physical body is just not meant to be on this planet all that long, and if this is true, that possibility makes me sad. I suppose it's conceivable that I have used up my youth and vigor on all the warm, sunny weekends past. No Goldwing in my future, no scratching my back with my fork in a public restaurant in the banquet room, and lord knows, no more gravy boats filled with mayonnaise dressing. Please.
The night we went to dinner at Marie Callender's, I felt relatively (speaking), thin. If it weren't for Marie Callender's food, I might just go back again for a confidence boost.
7 comments:
On a recent trip to New Orleans, we stopped for dinner at a Chili's in Gonzales, Louisiana. Friday night. It was a horrendous experience on many levels somewhat along the lines of what you've written. To top it off, the experience lingered with gastrointestinal issues the following two days. Nope, no more Chili's.
What kind of pie did you have?
I find it hard not to be judgmental when people who are vastly overweight make such horrendous food choices. On our recent trip we made a lot of Walmart stops (seemed fair since they provided us free overnight accomodations) and I was again flabbergasted at how many obese parents with obese kids were filling their shopping carts with total crap. And that restaurant experience you had sounds exactly like the same crowd.
And I'm sorry--human-head sized muffins and fried green beans on a salad? WTF?
My oh my!
It should, but it never amazes me the girth of those that frequent these eateries. I agree with Crabby that it's hard not to be judgmental, but you want to take a stick out and whack them on their hand when they reach for those fried foods, breads and mashed potatoes. “Do you know what you’re doing to yourself”? I want to scream. It’s a sad state of our society and we’ve no one to blame for our ignorance.
From the files of “been there done that” don’t even get me started on cigarette smoking.
and Im stuck on the knees.
I spent a lot of time last week and this weekend with a friend who had a total knee replacement (she's 50) it's amazing what we can do now with science...and what we still can not.
There are a few restaurants like this where I live, and I hate to say it, but it makes me more conscious of the quality/quantity of the food I'm eating. I mean, for me it's impossible to find a decent dinner at Cracker Barrel (MIL's favorite), but at least I leave with renewed resolve for staying healthy.
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