Check, please.
Fifteen at the table.
Don't ask me how the restaurant managed to fit us all during lunch rush hour.
Our waitress is surprisingly good-humored despite the gauntlet of caffeine-rattled adolescent cousins that make up one formidable side of our table.
Artlessly she inquires into our table relations.
At center is my grandmother, the slightly-senile catholic matriarch of the family. Flanking her are my aunt and uncle, the high-strung pathologist and the foul-mouthed obstetrician respectively.
Opposite us are my cousins; Matthew and his girlfriend sit close and are in love as only high-school kids can be. They are both going to separate colleges next year. The adults secretly talk about how it will not last.
And then there is me. The mistake of the group. Six years too old and twenty years too young, among other things.
The waitress begins taking orders. One side of the table, the kid side, orders a menagerie of elaborate alcoholic-free cocktails.
Lava Flows. Monkey Wrenches. Blue Hawaiis.
For teenagers and younger, they have a disturbingly precocious knowledge of the world of mixed drinks.
The queue finally comes to me.
Feeling decadent and listening to that old adage, I order a Piña Colada. With rum.
The waitress eyes me.
"You didn't look like a virgin."
Don't ask me how the restaurant managed to fit us all during lunch rush hour.
Our waitress is surprisingly good-humored despite the gauntlet of caffeine-rattled adolescent cousins that make up one formidable side of our table.
Artlessly she inquires into our table relations.
At center is my grandmother, the slightly-senile catholic matriarch of the family. Flanking her are my aunt and uncle, the high-strung pathologist and the foul-mouthed obstetrician respectively.
Opposite us are my cousins; Matthew and his girlfriend sit close and are in love as only high-school kids can be. They are both going to separate colleges next year. The adults secretly talk about how it will not last.
And then there is me. The mistake of the group. Six years too old and twenty years too young, among other things.
The waitress begins taking orders. One side of the table, the kid side, orders a menagerie of elaborate alcoholic-free cocktails.
Lava Flows. Monkey Wrenches. Blue Hawaiis.
For teenagers and younger, they have a disturbingly precocious knowledge of the world of mixed drinks.
The queue finally comes to me.
Feeling decadent and listening to that old adage, I order a Piña Colada. With rum.
The waitress eyes me.
"You didn't look like a virgin."
posted by d l wright at 8/07/2006 08:01:00 PM
5 Comments:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: You really need to acquire a taste for Scotch and Whiskey.
You're a fucking good writer, L Dub.
but you do look like a virgin
I love Whiskey, but you know, Rum is the tropical alcohol of choice.
My uncle was a big fan of the Bon Voyage -- Gin, Baileys, Kahlua, Whiskey and Tequila, smothered in Grenadine.
[My surfing buddies thought I was under twenty, so you know, whatever.]
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