Author (#32)November 2006 Archives

I am so angry. So angry! I AM SO ANGRY!

(mimicking a crowd at a comedy show) HOW ANGRY ARE YOU?

Stop it! I’m not kidding. I am very angry. Very, very, very angry.

Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Why are you so angry?

Because OJ Rifkin lied to me! He…she...it (?!?) lied!

Wait. OJ Rifkin lied to you? Are you sure?

Yes. I’m sure. I’m very sure. I’m super sure in fact.

(confused) But that doesn’t sound like something OJ Rifkin would do? OJ Rifkin hates lies. He took liars to task in a post a few days ago. He practically called Eater X a liar!

OJ Rifkin doesn’t hate lies. OJ Rifkin can’t hate lies. He's as big a liar as anyone else. He’d have to hate himself to hate lies.

Okay then. I’ve got to ask. Tell me, How exactly did OJ Rifkin lie to you?

Because he goes by the name OJ Rifkin. He's been writing under a pseudonym!

Geez. You’re right. He does. He has. (pause) Do you think he just forgot?

There is a restaurant called The Olive Garden that I love to visit, and not because they treat you like family. Because they don't. They just like to say that they do. My family is European, and I kiss them on the cheeks when I see them, sometimes once, sometimes twice, and sometimes three times. Un, deux, trois. At The Olive Garden I have never once been kissed on the cheek. In fact, they won’t even shake my hand if I give it to them. But that's okay. I don’t go there to make friends.

I love The Olive Garden for its incomparable breadsticks and salad, which my anemic vocabulary can't flatter enough. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that The Olive Garden’s breadsticks and salad have been touched by the hand of God! Twice in my life, in the spirit of honest debate, I asked men of faith how they were certain that God exists, and each of them gave me the same unsatisfying answer. “Because I just know,” they said self-righteously. Ask me on the other hand how I know that God exists, and I’ll give you something a whole lot better. I’ll give you actual proof. “Because I’ve been to The Olive Garden,” I’ll whisper. “And I’ve had their breadsticks.”

I like The Olive Garden’s breadsticks because they glisten with butter and sparkle with salt and because they're perfectly soft on the inside and out, as if my mom had kindly clipped away crusts and given me half-baked centers. I like The Olive Garden’s salad because it's made with iceberg lettuce and because every molecule comes bonded to Italian dressing. I have always favored iceberg lettuce over other greens because iceberg lettuce has no flavor of its own. It tastes only like that which it’s wearing, which is, I think, how a salad green should be. Other greens are bitter and dominate their dressings. I want a green that’s flavorless and efficient, like a plastic straw, which I’d use instead of lettuce if I weren’t embarrassed to drink dressing in public.

The Olive Garden offers a surprisingly broad selection of wines for a restaurant of its standing, but I don’t even read the wine list anymore. I couldn’t care less which wines The Olive Garden sells. I’ll drink red or white, whichever color fills my cup, because I am an opportunistic drinker. I would drink blue wine if that’s what you gave me, and I’d drink it all and then ask for more.

I heard a credible rumor once that nothing is made from scratch at The Olive Garden, that everything comes in a plastic bag for the chef to reheat. “They just boil it and then…Voila!" my friend told me one day. She’s never liked that I love The Olive Garden. She thinks it’s beneath my caste. If I were a candidate for public office, I’m pretty sure she’d do her best to keep me away from The Olive Garden. She’d tell my handlers, “It’s a political liability.”

I had to explain to that friend one time that I don’t care that the entrées come in a bag. “The Olive Garden’s entrées,” I told her, “have always been secondary.” But that was an understatement. In fact, The Olive Garden’s entrées have always been denary. When I am at The Olive Garden, my Hierarchy of Needs reads like this: salad, breadsticks, wine, family, friends, football, salad, breadsticks, wine, and finally my entree. I don’t even know where I’d place fresh air on that list. I’m too worried that it would hasten the oxidation of my blue wine. Sometimes I liken The Olive Garden’s salad to a nightclub. “To enter,” I say, “you’ve got to pay a cover charge.” And then I’ll point to a picture of the shrimp scampi, and say, “It’ll cost $20.95 for us to enter tonight. Plus tax and tip.”

I brought Eater X to The Olive Garden last week to thank him for feeding my beloved goldfish, Whistlepea, while I’d been away on a recent vacation. It was Eater X’s first trip to The Olive Garden and, even though I know he loved it, he called to my attention what I now realize to be The Olive Garden’s only obvious flaw.

“There’s a man in the bathroom handing out mints,” Eater X said nervously upon returning to our table mid-meal. He stood there in front of me, his eyes wide open.

“You mean the bathroom attendant?” I suggested kindly.

Eater X stood still. His expression remained unchanged.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Aw, nothing,” he said. He paused, and as he sat down he continued, “It’s just that I guess I would have preferred that he hand out breadsticks.”