Monday, December 1, 2008

Traditions - Black Friday @ Waffle House

I do not like referring to the day after Thanksgiving Day as Black Friday. But I figured it communicated my point.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the "tradition" of sorts, we try to honor each year - going to breakfast at the Waffle House on Friday after Thanksgiving.

I like the hustle and bustle of the season and in the past I actually liked hanging out at malls and other retail establishments during the fury that is the Christmas shopping season. I thought the Waffle House would allow our kids to see some of that excitement ... and they always shout "Good Morning!" when you walk in... it's just festive!

One Christmas Day, my parents and I stopped at a Waffle House for breakfast en route to my Grandparents home and it was a memorable occasion, one wait-person was singing Christmas Carols, it was crowded because most other restaurants were closed... but it was a neat atmosphere.
So we went again this year; but I am rethinking the feasibility of this tradition.

In our town, we have three Waffle Houses and a multitude of them within a fifty mile radius.
We usually choose the newer one that is on the other side of town, but this year, I decided we would go to a smaller town nearby. They now boast a Walmart Supercenter AND a Waffle House so I thought we would go there since it was closer.

I was not impressed - and my expectations were not exactly lofty.

We like to sit at the counter so you can see all the action going on around the grill. Unfortunately, we didn't sit at the front counter but rather at the lower counter to the side... closer to the floor. We could see all the staff trudging through grease and bits of food that looked as if it had been there awhile. It was not very appealing.

I then looked down at the floor under my feet on the other side of the counter. I saw very little difference.

Apparently the restaurant was doing their part to conserve water because they never offered us any and they didn't appear to be wasting any water on dishtowels with which one might wipe down a counter!
Sometimes, restaurants will use a menu or place mat in case the surface doesn't appear to be -clean - not these folks, they were highly transparent... just piled the menus over in the corner.

Our first wait-person immediately evoked pity from me because I thought she must be in pain from the hardware hanging from her lip.

She called Ab by name and we all looked at her like the folks in George Bailey's dream on "It's a Wonderful Life!" when Clarence was showing him what it would be like if he'd never been born.

I looked down and saw that Ab's book bag had her name monogrammed on the front so I felt better. The "clever" wait-person had seen that.

When she walked away, Ab said, "I didn't think anybody with a pierced lip knew my name". I like to encourage open-mindedness and tolerance but honestly, I was cautious about this person in great part because of her appearance...

I thought she may be considering selling my daughter to the gypsies.

Wait, I'm not sure if I can say "selling her to the gypsies" - that may be considered insensitive.

Anyway, we got another wait-person - and not because we requested it. I think some of the other employees were correcting her in an insensitive manner because I heard one wait-person tell another that she was crying (they probably said something about gypsies).

Despite the atmosphere and the filthiness (by the way, I am of the opinion that "filthy" is a higher degree of unsanitary . . . it goes: dirty, nasty and then filthy), the food was pretty good and the kids scarfed it down quickly.

As I mentioned, I may be re-thinking this tradition in years to come - or at least I will try and do a better job of scouting our location before we visit.

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