Ok, so this weekend we went to Madison. It rocked. We had such a great time, which is good, since it's the only vacation we are going to get. We got to meet all of Pat's neices and nephews...Sophie particularly liked this part of the trip. There were 5 kids running around and three dogs. She was basically in heaven. This could have gone either way, so I was glad that she just thrived in this environment. It was fun to watch her. We also got up to Milwaukee to visit friends Eric and Alison, who just had a baby. HAHAHAHAHAHHA! They are doing fine, but I do not envy them. I told them point blank that when people say that this time goes fast, they are liars. It seems to take forever. Even now that Sophie is older, it still seems like time has slowed down to a crawl. Although this last month has sped up quite a bit. I really like this stage, so it will be hard to see it go, but I am looking forward to the day when I can sleep until 8 again. I felt bad for Pat because both days we were there, she woke up at 6/6:15. At least she slept well! And for the most part did well in the car. She had a major meltdown on the way back from Milwaukee, but it was past her bedtime and had been a long day, which had culminated in a wonderful dinner and drinks al fresco! Yup, this is pretty damn rambling...but that's what this is for. So, on to the truck stop...
So, on the way home, Sophie fell asleep about 8 minutes after we dropped off Pat, which was great. And then she kept sleeping and then my bladder got full and then she kept sleeping and so forth. It was crazy. After she had been sleeping for about 2 and a half hours, I finally made Michael stop in St. Charles, the home of what he and I call "The Amish Truck Stop", but which is actually called Amish Ovens. We had previously had a great experience at this place. Great fries, good service, homey atmosphere. So, we thought, "Hey, let's stop here." So, we did and I ran inside and peed for about 60 seconds straight. Yes, I really had to go! I went back and got Michael and Sophie and we went down to the restaurant part of the truck stop. We grabbed the only high chair and dragged it down to a booth and waited for our server. And waited and waited and waited. Finally a very unfortunate looking woman (she had the vague resemblance to the evil mom in Goonies, I half expected her to say, "It's wet ain't it" when she slammed down our water glasses.) came down to our table and barked "Do you got menus?" Well, obviously, there were no menus on our table, so we said, "No." She retrieved us some menus and we began perusing them. Meanwhile another couple came in. Sophie flirted shamelessly with them and continued to smile at them throughout the whole time we were there. After about 15 minutes of looking at the menu, the waitress finally came back. I ordered the tomato basil grilled cheese sandwich with cole slaw, this sounded fabulous to me and I was pretty excited to try it. The waitress replied, "Does that have chicken on it?" I looked at her confused, "No." It was a fucking grilled cheese for god's sake, why would it have chicken on it. "Oh that's right, it's for vegetarians," she replied. I was a bit confused, but answered, "Yes, that's right." After she took my order, I had little hope that she would get Michael's right. He was about to make a complicated request regarding eggs hollandaise w/o ham. She seemed to understand when he said, he wanted spinach instead or tomato if they didn't have that. "Anything but ham," he stated clearly. "Ok," she replied. Then we waited and waited.
Meanwhile, she went to take the other couple’s order. The first thing she said to them was, “We don’t got no chicken.” The couple looked at her. I tried not to laugh. Then they proceeded to place their order. The gentleman of the couple made a special request and she said, “No.” Yes, a server actually just said, “NO.” Can you believe it? Then she said they would have to charge for it, but that’s very different from, “No.” Weird. Then we waited and waited. Since we were going nowhere fast, I asked Michael to change Sophie's diaper, so we wouldn’t have to do it right before we left. While he was gone, the lady of the couple was shocked to find that there was a fly in her coffee. No lie, a fly. She said she wanted to ask for another cup and I said, “Good luck.” As we waited, people were coming in and noticing that not a whole lot was happening. The couple across from us told them how long they had been waiting and the new people left.
Finally our food appeared or at least someone’s food appeared. On the tray I saw eggs hollandaise with ham and a vegetable stir-fry, neither of which were ordered by us. I said, “That’s not what we ordered.” The waitress looked at me like I had 5 heads. “Yes, that’s what I wrote down,” she replied. “But there’s ham on the eggs hollandaise.” At this point, Michael had returned. “Well, we don’t have any spinach.” “Well, what about tomato?” I asked. “We don’t have any.” “Couldn’t you have used the same tomato that was going to be on the grilled cheese I ordered?” Again, the 5 heads stare shot at me. “I didn’t order this either.” “Oh,” she replied. Michael was looking less than pleased at this point. “I ordered the grilled cheese.” “Oh, well, I’ll just take your order over again.” “No,” I said, “we’re out of time. We’ll take the stir fry and you will take this back.” I gestured to the hammy eggs. “Ok,” she said a bit forlorn. Fortunately, we did get the green beans I ordered for Sophie, which she happily ate along with some bits from the stir-fry. The stir-fry was dry and not so good. Michael was certain that it must have been from the last person who didn’t order it and sent it back. So, an hour later we paid the bill – she took the eggs hollandaise off the ticket by scratching it off with a pen – and left the lousiest tip I have ever left in my life and left. It was awful. I felt dirty after we left. We’ll never stop at the Amish truck stop again. There certainly has to be someone in St. Charles more competent than this woman. Someone please help her!!
At least this whole experience has shown me how Bush got elected to a second term. I feel a sadness about the United states after this. Maybe Shaun is right. I guess I just don’t want to believe that people are this totally incompetent, but apparently they are. Sigh. I miss college…Oh wait, maybe I don’t. After that fucking awful mascot catastrophe, I don’t think I can go back there either. There is no safe place left. RUN!!
