Millennium Force and Cedar Point Burnout

"Would anybody object to stopping at a restaurant and getting something to eat?" (WHAAAAAT?) "I'd really like to just sit down somewhere and relax in a nice restaurant and recharge myself before driving back to Cincinnati..."

"No, not all!" (grrrrr) "That's a really good idea!" (stupid Cindy)

Cindy did *all* of the driving this weekend, so of couse she was more than entitled to a little refueling if necessary. But gawd, why, WHY? Something inside just screamed bad idea. The park was so crowded I just knew we'd end up having to wait 30 minutes or more for a table. And who knows WHAT kind of service we'd get.

We would have our answer soon enough.

Tim Melago and Dave Sandborg decided to ditch dinner and instead head back to Pittsburgh (take me with you!). Meanwhile, our motley group consisted of me, stupid Cindy, Shawn McLaughlin, Steve Nuss, CoasterJulie and her boyfriend Geoff, and Todd Long. Dumb Julie pipes up and says "We like Friendly's!"

"Yeah." "Yeah, okay." "Hmm, okay." "Fine." "Yeah." "Whatever."

We all head for Friendly's and meet in the parking lot. We walk inside and oh good, not too crowded. I head for the bathroom while everyone waits to be seated. I walk into the bathroom, take one look at myself and wish to be hospitalized.

I walk back out and our group is immediately escorted to our table. We get a nice table for eight positioned right next to the kitchen. I take a look around. Hmm, friendly. Open up the menu and saaay, quesadillas. That sounds good. Geoff, along with Julie the big Friendly's expert, starts pushing the onion rings. That sounds good but I know what that'll do to me. Hmmm. Chicken wrap, yeahhh. Garden salad. Oh and looky, sandwich melts including a reuben, new item at Friendly's. Julie's going for the turkey dinner. Ew, their steaks look fake, yuck. Back to that quesadilla, yeah. God I'm gettin' thirsty. Burgers, no, the big salad, maybe, that wrap looks good, gotta get a quesadilla...

Todd grabs our hostess. "Mandy," he says, "we'd like a waitress NOW."

Oh, my.

We sit around for a bit while Steve teases Todd about the flirtatious way he says "Maaandy." Our waitress finally comes running up to our table, pulling out her order pad and pencil but acting as if she's balancing a mile high plateload of dishes. She's either high school age or just out of. A diploma would seem doubtful.

"Would you all like something to drink?"

Cindy orders first. "I'd like a sunshine orange smoothie, please." OOOOOOH!!! YEAH!!! Our group goes crazy. THAT SOUNDS GOOD! I WANT THAT! YEAH!! Cindy looks like she's just called the winner in the Kentucky Derby.

"Now is this together or do you all want this on separate checks?"

Harumph, humph, humph, harumph, humph, harumph.

Julie says "We're together," pointing to herself and Geoff. "The rest are separate." Todd says "we don't care, whatever's easiest." The waitress says "Well, it's a lot more work for me if I have to write them separate." Harumph, humph, humph, harumph. Todd says "well we don't really care, just put Julie and Geoff here together and the rest of us one ticket, what do you think?" Harumph, humph, humph "Does anybody else want to anything to drink?"

We all place our drink orders, half of us climbing on Cindy's back and ordering the sunshine orange smoothie. Our waitress leaves and I'm wondering, why did it just take fifteen minutes for us to only order our drinks? Why couldn't she take our dinner order as well?

We banter for awhile, Todd being his jovial self and Julie not looking like she feels too bad. Another ten or fifteen minutes go by. Todd gets up and goes to the front, comes back and sits down. "Where'd ya go?" asks Julie. "I just told Mandy we were gonna have to fire our waitress if we didn't see her pretty soon." Less than a minute later our waitress walks up carrying soda for some and water for others. Nothing for me.

"It'll be awhile on those smoothies, the person making them up front is really swamped."

Todd says "well, we'll be waiting for them" He whispers something in her ear and Steve immediately starts cracking up. He whispers for quite a long time and the waitress gets up not looking too happy. "Okay, I'll be right back in a second to take your order." "You'd better be," Todd says.

Waitress leaves and everybody asks "what'd you say to her?" "I told her she shouldn't wrap her hands around the top of everybody's glass like that, she should serve them from the middle or below. Most people don't appreciate having someone put their hands all over the top of a glass they're about to drink from."

Oh, my.

We wait. And wait. And wait. Finally Todd looks around and says "What the hell?" I have to admit, this was finally ridiculous. The restaurant was barely half full and there were at least three waitresses working *somewhere* in the building. Unfortunately none could be found anywhere in the dining area.

"What do we have to do to order some food around here?" yells Todd.

Oh no. Not a scene. Please don't make a scene, Todd. I hate scenes.

Todd gets up and goes to look for our waitress. He comes back and starts yelling about how there's only one person working the fountain area up front. It's been at least twenty or thirty minutes and we still hadn't ordered our dinner, and still no orange smoothie.

In the meantime, Steve went to work. He pulled out a small tablet and wrote at the top of the paper "Waitresses' phone numbers" The first name was "Mandy (419) 627-2350" Under that was "Waitress" and left space for a phone number. He slipped the piece of paper to Julie, who was sitting next to Todd, and after she distracted him by asking "isn't that our waitress back there?" slipped the piece of paper into his menu when his head was turned.

Todd yells "WHERE'S OUR WAITRESS!" He looks mad. Oh dear.

Waitress comes running up and Todd says "I told Mandy we were gonna have to fire ya if you didn't show up soon." Oh God Todd, please don't do this, you're being rude. Waitress tries to keep her dignity and says "Okay, everybody ready to order?" Harumph, humph humph. She pulls out that order pad and pen again, fumbles around with it for awhile, then squats down on the floor, looks up at us and says

"Okay, the first thing I gotta tell you is we are TOTALLY out of french fries."

BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! We all just busted out laughing. Todd goes "Every single thing on your menu COMES WITH FRENCH FRIES!" Waitress says "I know, be we're totally out. You can have any other kind of potato. Mashed .............. " Guess that's all the potato she knew. Todd reminded her we were still waiting for our smoothies. "I know," she said.

We finally manage to complete the complex process of ordering our food, but not before Todd finds his"waitresses' numbers" page in his menu, and only after our waitress gets flustered because she can't remember the codes for any of the food items. "They'll just kill me in the back if I don't get the codes right," she says. "Well, you don't have to worry about the code for french fries," Todd says.

She leaves. "Okay," says Todd. "Who's placing bets on how many orders she screws up?" Geoff predicted Julie's mashed potatoes would wind up in somebody's orange smoothie. That is, if we ever got them.

We waited. And waited. And waited. Steve got up and called his mom and dad in Florida. We waited some more. At least 45 minutes went by. Cindy looked like she was about to go off on somebody. Shawn just sat there and tried to make nice. Julie still seemed pretty jovial. "The Friendly's is good in Pennsylvania, I swear!" she says.

Finally our waitress brings out two orders of food, Julie's and Geoff's. They just sit there. Finally Todd gets up, finds our waitress and says something to her. A few minutes later waitress comes back carrying five sets of silverware. Of course there were seven in our party, none for me and Steve. Julie says "for a minute there I thought was gonna have to do this...." and proceeds to imitate "Mommy's little piggie" from the film "A Christmas Story."

Julie and Geoff start eating. And eating. They're halfway through with their food when I get up to go check on Steve. By this time I have had enough. "Tell the waitress to forget about my smoothie, if she ever gets back here," I said. "I wanted it before dinner, not during."

I go check on Steve who's out in the entryway talking on the phone. We go back inside, sit down and wait some more. Todd is absolutely beside himself. The expression on his face is getting angrier every minute and the tone in his voice is getting louder and louder. I am not a person who gets angry very often and I am totally embarressed to be a part of this scene. I do *not* like this situation. I want out before Todd goes postal.

"I'm ready to leave," I say. I look over at Cindy, who's fuming nearly as much as Todd. "What do you think?" I say. Shawn says "I say we just leave." "I'm ready to get out of here" she says. "C'mon, let's leave," I say and start to get up and walk. Someone says "what about Julie and Geoff?" "Oh yeah," I say, not even realizing that they're still eating. Julie and Geoff have their heads down in their plates, acting guilty for getting their food. "I guess we can't leave them. "Sorry," I said, and walked back to my chair and sat down.

Okay, I've resigned myself to something really bad happening here. Todd gets up and walks up to the front. "Where the hell is everybody?" he asks. He sits back down, then gets right back up and says "this is ridculous!" and looks in the kitchen. He comes back, sits down and says "There's food in there! It's sitting up on the shelf, just waiting to be served!" He gets back up and walks toward the front, then goes back to the kitchen. "THERE'S FOOD UP THERE, IS SOMEBODY GONNA SERVE OUR DINNER?" He turns around, sits down for a minute, then SLAMS his hands down on the table and gets up and *stands* right in the doorway of the kitchen. And he stays there. Doesn't move. Not even when a waitress walks by him. Puts his arm up over the doorway. I hear somebody from the kitchen area yelling something about "that asshole." Finally, Todd turns around, walks back to our table, says "Aw, the hell with it," and walks right into the kitchen. Meanwhile Julie's forkful of turkey remains suspended in air, she hasn't moved in minutes. All of a sudden Todd walks out carrying two plates of food and shouts "ALLRIGHT, WHO HAD THE BURGER?!" We all start screaming and shouting and clapping and laughing hysterically! I thought Julie was gonna die laughing! Steve raises his finger and Todd sets his cheeseburger down in front of him. "THERE YA GO, AND SHAWN, HERE'S YOURS." He turns around and walks back in the kitchen, then comes out with two more plates. "HERE.....THIS MUST BE MINE.....AND CINDY, YOUR TUNA MELT."

We are DYING. Even the other remaining customers are laughing and shouting. Todd walks back into the kitchen and comes out with my plate. "AND WHO HAD THIS THING? WHAT THE HELL IS IT???" "It's a quesadilla, Todd," I say and he says "WELL HERE YA GO!" and sets it down in front of me. He turns to a couple of the other customers. "THERE'S MORE FOOD IN THERE, IT'S JUST SITTING UP THERE IF ANYBODY WANTS IT!" He turns back to us and says "NOW, YOU ALL SET HERE? YA NEED ANYTHING ELSE? KETCHUP? YA WANT KETCHUP?" Steve says "Yes, please" and Todd walks into the kitchen and comes out with a bottle of ketchup. "EVERYBODY ALLRIGHT HERE? YA NEED ANYTHING?" I was dying. I immediately started clapping and we all burst into a huge round of applause for our wonderful and fearless friend, Todd Long.

Todd sits down and we all start eating. Todd says "there's people in there! nobody even said a word!" Pretty soon Debbie, the lady who was "swamped" at the fountain up front, comes back and says "I'm sorry. Really. I don't even work here. I work over at another restaurant, I'm just here trying to help out. I'm sorry things are such a mess." Todd says "they ought to give you a little more support around here." She says "you're right, and look, we're not going to charge you anything for your dinner." Todd says "well, my friends here still haven't gotten their drinks." Debbie says "I'm sorry, what can I bring you?" Somebody said "Mark didn't you order a salad?" and Todd went ballistic. "HE NEVER EVEN GOT HIS SALAD! YOU WANT YOUR SALAD?" "No," I said, not wanting anything but to get out of this place as quickly as possible. Cindy said "can I have another coke?" Debbie said "of course you can" and went around to each person taking drink orders. When she got me Julie said "Mark never even got anything to drink!" and again Todd went into orbit. "HE NEVER EVEN GOT ANYTHING TO DRINK!" "What would you like to drink?" Debbie asked. "Anything," I said. "Anything?" "Yes. Please. I'm begging you." Julie just lost it. "Would you like some water?" Debbie asked. I shook my head yes. "HE MUST PRETTY DAMN THIRSTY BY NOW" Todd barked..

Debbie left and came back promptly with our drinks. I fairly guzzled mine. Pretty soon a young guy walked out, stood in the kitchen doorway and smiled at us. "I'm sorry," he said. "This place sucks. I'm the cook here, and this place sucks." We all started laughing even harder. "YOU'RE DARN RIGHT IT SUCKS!" By this time two of the waitresses joined the cook in the doorway and nodded in agreement. This place sucks.

I don't think we ever stopped laughing and I found myself saying "I think this is the best dinner I've ever had!" We all finished our food, which *was* good, by the way! Debbie came back one more time to check up on us and offer her apologies again. Todd told her it was not her fault and we appreciated what she did. Shawn even left her a generous tip before we left.

I don't think I have ever had a more bizarre and hilarious experience than this dinner. This restaurant was, without a doubt, the most poorly managed place I've ever seen. There couldn't have been more than twenty customers in the entire room, ourselves included, and the place had at least three waitresses working that night, though exactly in what capacity I have no idea.

But I have never witnessed anyone act quite as bold as I saw that night in my friend, Todd. It was the finest and funniest display of chutzpah I have ever seen. Hats off to you, my friend.

After we were all finished eating, Shawn McLaughlin clapped his hands together and said,

"So! Who's up for ice cream?"

Thanks for reading.

Mark