Thursday, April 28, 2016

Val Does Not Wish to be Catered To

Val is off on a rant. "How uncharacteristic of her," you say. "Our Val is so even-keeled that she could walk across the undulating land-waves of a Richter 8.5 earthquake and never spill a drop of Diet Coke from her 44 oz cup, nor lose the encyclopedia on top of her head."

So much for how well you know me, and how good a liar(s) you are.

I've held this in until I'm near to boiling. Kept it on the back burner. Let it simmer for for five days. But now it must be rehashed. Served up with a grain of salt. Before I am stewing in my own juices.

THE CATERING WAITSTAFF SABOTAGED MY MEAL!

There. I said it. There's no other explanation. The plate I received at the luncheon for The Pony's special award (a leg lamp--NO IT WASN'T! Gotcha!) was not fit for Val nor beast. Nor Val THE Beast.

My salad was fine. Some romaine with croutons, and two gravy boats of ranch dressing to pass around the table and pour. Not a big deal. Except those Greedy Gus members of my dining party started passing the dressing boats as soon as we sat down. When in Rome, you know, pass the dressing boat with the other Romans. So I tentatively started forking my salad. The Pony dug in with gusto, and was done almost as soon as Hick and his fellow scholar. I looked around, and noticed that WE WERE THE ONLY TABLE EATING! Though our fellow wistful diners did look jealous. So I laid my fork down.

What if the speaker was going to ask us to say grace? I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen, what with so many diverse families in attendance, and the separation of church and school and all. But what if he DID, and I had chipmunk cheeks full of romaine? Just as I was contemplating that scenario, I heard the mother of the other scholar chomping on her croutons like a horse chomping a world record carrot. I'm glad my fork was laying in my salad plate, so I was not mistaken for the eager eater.

Or WAS I?

It took a while for the entrees to reach the table. The Pony and the other scholar both picked up their dessert plates. The Pony had a layered slice of vanilla and chocolate cake, and the other scholar had a piece of coconut cake like the one in front of my service. The other scholar's mother chided her on having dessert first. Seriously. She had no room to chide ANYBODY on table manners. I told the other scholar that this might go on her permanent record. That did not deter her. Nor The Pony.

After almost every other table in the room (over 50) had been served their entree, ours arrived. Well, seven out of eight arrived. Hick did not get his until a few minutes later. By that time, I had seen the sabotage.

The Pony and the five other dining companions had a blob of lasagna the size of Paul Bunyan's hand on their plate. I had a blob the size of a preemie's palm. Then Hick's arrived, and he, too, had a Paul Bunyan hand. Very unfair, but Val IS trying to cut back. In fact, she had promised her dessert to The Pony with the caveat that she would get two bites. So having a bit less lasagna was not enough to stew Val's goose.

It was the vegetables. The vegetables, I tell you! We had on our plate the pile of lasagna, and a smattering of chunky vegetables. Looked like broccoli, carrot, zucchini, and yellow squash. For the life of me, I could not tell how they had been cooked. I saw no sauce. Eating the bit of yellow squash revealed no seasoning. I tried the one floret of broccoli. It was hard as all get-out to cut with that funky butter knife in our place setting. But even Val does not put a whole broccoli floret in her gaping maw in public. The broccoli was acceptable. Then I tried a bite of zucchini. I managed to slice it down the middle, like bisecting a tiny green barrel. I ate a piece of carrot. The smallest one. It looked like the newborn borne by one of the other two carrot segments.

But I could not cut or saw in half the other two carrots. My butter knife sent one shooting like a wayward tiddlywink toward the center of the white-tableclothed table. Thankfully, the rim of the plate caught my carrot like Yadier Molina snagging a Carlos Martinez 100.9 mph fastball.

That's right. Val was served a portion of lasagna the size of a newborn's palm, and vegetable chunks that had not been cooked other than perhaps being swished under a trickling stream of warm tap water.

How's a Val supposed to eat, anyway?

12 comments:

  1. Perhaps you have just been spoiled by Gas Station Chicken?

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    1. Ooh! How I would LOVE some gas station chicken right now! But alas, Val has been cutting back. It was chicken tacos for me tonight, filled with LETTUCE! And a couple tiny cubes of chicken. But with plenty of salsa!

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  2. But did you have the equivalent of a 44 0z diet Coke?
    Your meal sounds unappealing, even if the veggies were overdone. Salad crunching... I had to laugh.

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    1. No! Not EVEN! The drinks were pre-poured, and sitting on our table. I had a glass of water which dripped condensation every time I picked it up. And a glass of pale brown liquid I assumed to be tea. I'm pretty sure the caterer would not have given everyone in the room a Diet Coke.

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  3. I'm a big lover of vegetables, but I'd have difficulty eating what you've so colorfully described.

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    1. Well, anybody without teeth like a set of chef's knives would have DIFFICULTY eating those vegetables I was served.

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  4. Wasn't there a Burger King in that town?

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    1. Now that you mention it...I did not see a single Burger King there.

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  5. I will have to compare my retirement dinner--on May 13--to The Pony's award dinner.

    Yeah, you are not the only one leaving public education in Missouri at the end of May. But you're the only one who won't be looking for another job this summer...

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    1. Is that ironic, Madam? You having your retirement dinner on Friday the 13th? Maybe Hick can hook you up with a medicine-delivery job out of that unmarked storefront in the plaza. Be sure to get your application in to Christy, who works at Casey's.

      When talk of my retirement came up at the teacher lunch table quite a while back, I said, "Do I HAVE to go to a retirement dinner? Because if I am expected to, I will. But I really don't like those kind of things." And the man in charge of my building said, "No, you don't have to." While the rest of them cut eyes at each other. So I think I dodged that bullet before anything was officially planned.

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  6. I smell a conspiracy in the making. Love the Yadi Molina comparison. You walk with an encyclopedia on top of your head? I'm impressed. I thought you just had a head full of encyclopedic knowledge.

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    1. I HOPE that's only a conspiracy that you smell... No need to be impressed by my encyclopedia head. I simply have a flat noggin.

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