WARNING! TRY NEW RESTAURANTS AT YOUR OWN RISK

In the small town where I live, the opening of a new restaurant is sometimes front page news. Especially if they’re hard up for news that day.  This owner must have known someone at the newspaper, because he got a great write-up, indicating he was a gourmet chef  just doing this town a favor to open a place here.

We fell for the story, and looked forward to going out for our usual Sunday Brunch.  There are a couple of restaurants  here in town who do a great job, but we decided to give this new one a try.  Big mistake. The place was filled to capacity, thanks to all the free publicity.  We arrived at ll:35.  The people at the table behind us kept turning around and looking toward the kitchen and complaining that they hadn’t yet been served. We figured they were simply the impatient type.  Not us, we had plenty of time.

Ten minutes later, a waitress came to take our drink orders,  and we had our coffee and tea within 5 minutes. She then took our food order—poached eggs and a bowl of cheese grits for me; bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns for my husband.  A few minutes later, a man emerged from the kitchen and left the restaurant. Ten minutes later, he came back with a bag full of egg cartons.  Apparently, they had run out of eggs.  This meant another fifteen minute wait while they prepared our order. My hard poached eggs came,  served on a large white plate.  There isn’t anything very appetizing about a couple of rubbery eggs on a cold plate.  The cheese grits were dry, with the consistency of rice.  Cheddar cheese had been sprinkled over the top of the grits. One bite was enough for me.  My husband’s bacon was not crisp, it was soggy and fatty. The hash browns were pale brown.  He tried to finish most of it, but the food simply  didn’t go down very well.  By 12:30, we were ready to leave.

 We didn’t feel it was the fault of the waitress, so we left her a good tip, but  thought it only fair to voice our complaints.  She explained that actually, we had come late for breakfast at 11:30, when they were actually only expecting to serve lunch, so they weren’t prepared for us.  Funny, all the other restaurants in town have no problem serving Sunday breakfast around noon.  

It’s sad, really.  This place has been open six weeks, and they still don’t have it together.  No wonder new restaurants fail at such an alarming rate.  

DISGUSTING COMMERCIALS--THE PRICE WE PAY TO WATCH TELEVISION

No, I’m not talking about your monthly cable bill.  Nor how much you paid for all the television sets throughout your house.  I'm talking about the annoying advertisements we must endure in order to see our favorite shows.

Off hand, here are two  commercials that we've awarded top groanworthy ratings.

1.“We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two”.  This is an insurance ad and we’ve probably seen it a hundred times.  Once, we decided not to watch a movie with that same actor who drums out those same words, week after week.  We’re tired of looking at him, and we never want to hear his voice again.

2. The digestive tract ad, where you see a sort of naked looking girl with kinky hair prancing around wearing a  flesh colored body suit,  with her large and small intestines drawn in living color.  Yes, we can turn off the sound, but we still have to see that disgusting GI tract.  As many times as I’ve seen this victim of stomach upset, I honestly cannot recall the name of the product being advertised.  By the time they get to the nitty gritty, I’m too grossed out.

Last night we saw one that may move up to the top of the list.  In the first scene,  we see a beautiful blonde sitting on the toilet  Then, just so we know it’s not gender specific, they switch scenes to a young man sitting on a toilet with a grimace on his face.  Well of course, it’s all about constipation.  Just what we want to hear before the evening news.  It probably won’t be long until they show someone’s nice soft feces.  Yuck!

Then, all the irritating prescription drug commercials for every medical condition you could ever have.  I suppose they wouldn’t show them if they didn’t help sell their products.  But personally, I would not ask my doctor to write a script for some drug I saw on TV.  Seems like that would be telling him how to do his job, and a bit insulting. 

Thank heaven the spring primaries are over.  By election day, I’d seen so many candidates ripping each other to shreds that I couldn't have voted for any of them.