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When you're The Food Whore, it's rare to have a weekend off. Your life revolves around making fabulous food for fabulous parties. (And in my case, swearing at all the guests...) And these fabulous parties always happen on the weekends.

But this past weekend was a rare one - a weekend off.

I have been salivating over this one for weeks, excited at the possibility of doing something wild and crazy like staying home and watching a good movie. Or lying on the floor staring at the cieling. Or running the streets shouting, "I have a weekend oooooofffff!!!"

Alas, that is not how I spent this past Saturday night.

I made the mistake of answering the phone on Tuesday night.

It was The Relative.

"Oh great, you're home!"

Damn.

"Ok, this Saturday is our turn!"

"Oh yes. We insist! We will take you out for a belated anniversary gift!

Damn.

"Our place is a mess - we are currently redecorating so we thought we would just take out out, instead."

Damn.

"Hello? Are you still there?"

"Yes. I hope that works for you because our schedule is crazy and when I spoke to you a couple of weeks ago you were talking about how nice it was going to be to have a Saturday night off and I noted that on my calendar - that you had this coming Saturday off - and I just knew it would be the perfect time for us to pay you back!"

Me and my big damn mouth.

"We're thinking Thai food. So we will meet you there at 7:30 on Saturday night. We can't wait!"

Why is it that I can find all the words needed to scold someone for stealing shrimp from a buffet line but when it comes to things like this, I find myself dumbfounded?

Anyway.

So on Saturday night at 7:20 we arrived at The Thai Place and waited…and waited…and waited… and at 8:00 They arrived. “Oh you’re here? Are we late?”

“Oh sure. Whatever. We’re here. Isn’t this place fabulous?”

We ordered our food and a nice shaker of lemon drops. There were enough to share, but like that was going to happen.

So we're making small talk and I notice The Relative's Husband staring at the television hanging from the rafters above the bar. He had a direct view and was fascinated with The Yankees beating the pants off The Redsocks. (The Friend in Boston has my sympathies)

Small talk was taking place between Us Ladies while The Husband interjected his tidbits of wisdom. Every once and a while The Relative's Husband would turn his head and say, "Wha..? Oh. Um. Yeah. I don't know", and go back to watching that damn game.

Our food came and he systematically stabbed his scallops while mindlessly put them in his mouth ... while watching that damn game.

The lemon drops were gone, The Husband was chewing on the last bit of squid tentacles when The Buxom Waitress came buy to ask if we wanted dessert. We all declined but The Relative's Husband said nothing. So The Buxom Waitress waited and said, "Sir, nothing for you?" and he got this disturbed look in his face.

I smiled at The Buxom Waitress and said, "We'll take the check, please" and turned to The Relative's Husband and said, "I am sorry, are we bothering you?" I heard The Husband mumble, "oh shit...", while The Relative got red in the face. The Relative's Husband looked at me and said, "What? I wasn't paying attention."

The check came, and silly me thought since they wanted to take us out for our anniversary that meant they would pay. Instead they added up their portion and pushed the tab to us.

Next time they call, I will simply get in my car, drive to their home, knock on the door, give them $60, and say thanks for the wonderful time.

And then I will be entering The Witness Protection Program so that no Relatives will ever find me again.

Posted by Foodwhore at October 18, 2004 06:33 PM

Posted by: Echo at October 19, 2004 06:36 AM

Posted by: bill at October 19, 2004 07:56 AM

Posted by: Sasha at October 19, 2004 08:13 AM

Posted by: Bob at October 19, 2004 08:27 AM

Posted by: Sie at November 2, 2004 12:25 PM