At Least Nobody Went on Strike in Glen Park

Last night Plot wanted to take Ducknik to Little Larry's, her favorite local bistro, for her Mother's Day dinner. But they were very busy and the only reservation Plottie could grab was for 8:30pm. Their friend Ron was flying in from New York and would join them for dinner.

So Plot and Duck put out some hors doeurves to munch on, and opened a bottle of very good red '07 Ensemble, and started munching, and waiting for their friend to arrive, and munching, and waiting, and waiting some more while munching, and then Plot checked his calendar to realize Ron was coming in June, not May.

By then a good bit of wine and many munchables had been consumed. Plot and Duck put on their jackets and walked down the hill to Little Larry. They sat right down.

The place was filled. They ordered -- Ducknik had a salade vert with artichoke bottoms and Plot had the smoked salmon over a delicious vinaigrette and plate of greens. So far so good.

It had taken longer than usual for the first course to come, and they had kind of tucked P and D in a corner -- not Siberia, but more like one of those arrondisements in Paris that nobody has ever heard of -- the Fifty Second, which is on the border with Belgium.

And then they waited. And waited. And waited. Finally Plot got up and asked the lady behind the bar if they had been forgotten. Their waiter was nowhere to be seen. "What did you order?" she asked and Plot told her Duck was having the sea bass avec sauce Grenobleoise and Plot was having the filet mignon with ze French Fries. "Ah," she said, and went to the back. Nothing happened for another good long while.

Not nothing: the waiters were standing at the end of the bar having a fine joke and enjoying ze good laugh. It was getting more and more like Paris.

Zey waited. Et waited. Et waited some more.

Just about the time Plot was going to stand up and walk out the door, the food arrived. Duck's fish was very good. But Plot's filet was not a filet, in the first place, but some piece of horse or large dalmatian, that had been, in the second place, drenched in brown gravy, beaten with a stick and then put through the U-No-Chew machine.

It was already very late. It was Mother's Day. Plot didn't want to send it back and wait for something else and leave Duck eating alone. So he tried cutting it into tiny bits, but you just couldn't chew it. And this was not a cheap dinner.

He was going to tell them to give it to some homeless and toothless person, but he mentioned to the busboy when he asked "and how deed you eenjoy everyzeeng?" that his filet was inedible and might have been a dead parrot.

"Ah," said the busboy, "wee are haveeng a leetle prob-leme een ze kitchen tonight...sorry about zat."

A lady came to take dessert orders and also said "sorry about zat." The "sorry about zat" phrase stuck in Plottie's craw. What he wanted to do was not doable in this situation, so he vowed to suck it up, go home and never come back.

Instead, the restaurant did the right thing. They removed Plottie's order from the bill, brought them a couple of glasses of champagne, apologized profusely and then brought two absolutely ridiculously delicious desserts, one of which was a kind of French Toast with ice cream, golDURNitall!

The lesson is: when you screw up, admit it and make it up to the customer. We appreciate that kind of treatment.

And at that very moment Plot and Duck noticed that sitting two seats down from them were their two neighbors from next door. The restaurant brought them champagne too and the four sat around shmoozing and then walked up the hill and home together.

Their friends, Cheryl and Keith, had just gotten back from the Trip From Hell -- they were supposed to take a slow but pleasant barge from Le Havre to Paris, with BOTH of their sets of parents, but instead the lock workers on the Seine went on strike so the boat couldn't move, and then the Noro Virus set in and everyone got sick as a dog, after which the French government insisted everyone get off the ship and threw them onto a bus. Things just kept getting worse.

A tough piece of animal flesh doesn't seem so bad. A few glasses of champagne and it's all just another First World Problem. Right?