Thanksgiving Catch Up

I got back from my Thanksgiving trip to Midland yesterday at about 2:40 pm or so. The return drive was mostly, well actually wholly, uneventful, which is always a good thing. I made a straight shot, other than stopping in Llano to pee at the Dairy Queen, and while I intended to buy some fries or an ice cream to tide me over for the next hour drive back home, let's just say Llano was a happening little town on Sunday and the DQ order counter was backed up. They are not super fast there, either, so I just mentally noted that next time I stopped I'd buy a little more than usual. So maybe I'll get a Dilly Bar to make up for my peeing and running.

Beyond that, Llano's a little scary on Sunday, with hunters galore. Which reminds me, I can't remember which town it is, maybe Eden?, that has a large banner over the street as you pass which says "Camouflage Cotillion." It makes me imagine large flowing dresses with camo tulle and tree bark tiaras.

Anyhow, I left Llano and whilst driving through Burnet called David to let him know I was less than an hour away. Keith had driven up on Saturday and, surprise for me, they were looking at apartments and indeed filling out an application for rental! Best of all, they stuck to the plan I had made for them, and if all goes well will be very close to South Congress and just a short taxi ride to downtown. Later I'll fill in the reason for this plan, but I want to get to my Thanksgiving Holiday and the following days first.

I'd have to say it's hard to detail Thanksgiving itself, because it's warmth and family, and all the tastes we've known through the years, headlined with Nene's stuffing, Dad's Mom's fruit salad (which is almost an excuse just to eat cream) and the other delights. Suffice to say that, barring any family drama (has happened a few times, but not too many) and my absence (has only happened once so far, not a good thing for all) Thanksgiving at the Lewis Home is uniformly excellent.

The following Friday, that Blackest of Fridays, I cannot say the same about, and that's the real adventure of my trip. I decided, this time, to get up early (6:00 am) and go with Mom, Chan, Simon and Armanae on the trek to Retail Hell. Why? Well, more time to spend with them really, and, while my sister is the shopaholic (OCD is dealt with in many different ways, shopping part of her way) in the family, and though I will admit I do enjoy shopping though I'm good at looking and not buying, I wanted to go just to see all the crazy people.

We went to KOHL'S first, as did, apparently, the other half of Midland that wasn't camped out at Best Buy. The line at KOHL'S stretched, lines I should say, all the way to the back of the store, each line almost meeting the other at the end. I thought, well, we will look, but no, my sister decided to buy stuff. Had I known that going in, I would have parked in line and waited for her to bring me things,. Instead after her shopping she and I got in line with her selections, then I told her to go look more and just bring things to me. That worked well enough, though we were probably in line for 45 minutes, maybe more. The nice thing was that everyone in the store seemed friendly and not cut throat. All in all KOHL'S was mildly amusing, a long wait, but a fuss free start to the day (a day that started way too early, anyhow).

Next we went to Target, where there was only a crowd in the electronic and toy sections, but no overwhelming lines at the registers. We looked a bit, bought a few things, left uneventfully, but of course that was three hours into the day, and we had planned on meeting the rest of the kids, my Dad and Jr for breakfast at IHOP.

Well, everyone who stayed at home basically decided to stay at home, so we went to IHOP as assembled, and there was a wait, of course, 45 minutes or more, so we thought why not make the drive over to Denny's, where surely no one else would have such big ideas?

Yeah, well, they didn't, but, Denny's had about 3 people working the restaurant. After I walked past a purple clad bitch troll from hell woman, trying to see if there was a list and not appear to be cutting in front of her, I asked her "I'm seeing if there's a list" to which she replied with a scowl and no Christmas glee "we're waiting in line" to which I replied "well, yes, obviously, but is there a list?" and she scowl growled "no" again and at that point my faith in humanity began to wane.

My faith didn't increase as we waited with only a few people in front of us, but hey, this is Midland, right? Not enough employees, this is how it's done. We finally got seated, after a scowl from the waitress and some unintelligible "uhhhhh" from her, and ordered coffee, which eventually came. At this point I realized, well we realized, being a big sugar and cream in coffee family, that there were no sugar packets on the table. Rather than ask for them, I decided to go on a hunt myself, knowing it would be faster. And yet across all the empty tables, of which there were many, and still a line backed out the door to get a table, no sugar packets were to be found.

I came back from this hunt unsuccessful, having spied the condiment station and having seen no sugar packets there. I had to announce that I believed they were out of sugar. This made our coffee selections moot. Hey, if I'm tasting coffee at one of Becky's tastings, I will drink it sans sugar and cream. But if it's me, for joy and not snobbishness ;) drinking it, it will have sugar, cream and only a little coffee. :)

(Oh, wait, I'm still a coffee snob, David sneaked Folger's into the house and when I realized it, there was the solution to the mystery of the icky smelling morning coffee. I had to call him out on it.)

However, I saw our waitress bring a small bowl of sugar to another table, so thought, perhaps, not all is lost. We asked for sugar after we finally got to order our Grand Slam Variations, and eventually she brought us some (not enough for a heavily sugar/cream/coffee oriented family of five) and as that resource was depleted I noticed what looked like hardened chocolate pudding near the bottom of the bowl. Fun.

Simon's food came first, and ours followed 5 or 10 minutes later. My hash browns were cold, but otherwise, it was a tasty for what you expect from Denny's breakfast. (I must interject that for Midland's fine restaurant choices, there are not a whole lot of good breakfast places.) But still, having asked for more sugar in a not tainted bowl, none arrived. I drank a little coffee creamed with no sugar, but I didn't like it. Or didn't love it, like I love sweet, creamy coffee (you've probably gotten that point by now).

It's clear to me, by this point, no sugar for us. It was also looking like the check wasn't going to arrive either, so I went up to the serving station again and waited for the check there, and when she gave it to me, I politely said that, since we had little then no sugar, the bowl was dirty, my hash browns were cold and the food arrived at different times, she should do something about making the coffee charge disappear. She didn't argue, though she turned to a guy just emerging from the back with four sacks of purchased sugar and told him never mind "they're already pissed." Well, probably mind, because other people throughout the day might accidentally want sugar, so the purchase was well made.

Still, I wasn't caustic or anything, and she noted that they were short handed and I noted that I was aware of it, and my sister intoned that it wasn't our fault, and of course that's true, no matter the situation we don't go to restaurants expecting to be wholly inconvenienced by the experience. But I told the woman that even without a full staff, a positive attitude goes a long way in helping the situation. Which is to say, had she just been friendly at the start, and told us there was a sugar shortage which was close to becoming and became a sugar outage, we could have amended our plans (Mom had also ordered grits, and won't eat them without sugar) and went without the coffee that we barely drank and so forth.

All in all, though, she wasn't rude about taking off the coffee, and it was an equitable solution, as the breakfast wasn't horrid, or even bad, as far as the food went. Of course, we were quite hungry by then, so cardboard with ketchup might have been tasty.

You'd think that would qualify as the worst Black Friday experience, but there's more, and worse, but I'll add it later. The breakfast fiasco is enough to digest, for now.