TONIGHT WAS MEATBALL NIGHT! And when me and the missus get the hankerin' for meatballs, we go to
Maggiano's. Sure, it's not the greatest Italian restaurant in the world, or even in Los Angeles. It's probably only a couple of steps or so up from Olive Garden. But that's okay by us, because of the meatballs. Those meatballs are some good shit, people. So we make the call to pick it up and bring it home, coz tonight...we don't like other people so much. Not so much.
My wife drives to the Magg, which leaves me to hop out and grab the snacks. It's a plan totally worthy of an
Ocean's Eleven or similar movie. If not the whole movie, at least the most exciting scene. As none of the designated "to go" parking spots were available (they never are, as they're taken, I'm sure, by the late-arriving waitstaff), my wife pulls up behind the parked cars and puts on the hazard lights. It's a classic move.
Even more classic, however, is the move made by the owner of the big black Mercedes sedan. Its hazards are on as well...but it's parked in the handicapped spot.
Classy move, I think as I go in to the to go portion of the restaurant. (Maggiano's has a separate room for to go orders. It's a tiny room with just a counter and a register. If more than two people are waiting, the third and fourth person would have to wait outside. That's how tiny the room is.) So, I know that the woman at the counter is the owner of the Mercedes in the handicapped spot. She's just getting her food as I walk in. I notice all the bling on the one hand she's using to gesture. Lots of gold. Some diamonds. She's gesturing to help her make her point.
"Can I get some marinara sauce? A side of marinara sauce?"
She accents this with pointing at the woman behind the counter and then pointing into the bag of food. And then back at the woman, then back into the bag. You know, to help the woman behind the counter, the
Hispanic-looking woman who speaks perfect English, understand the complex message she's communicating. The one about sauce. And how the sauce isn't in the bag. And can some sauce be put into the bag? The woman behind the counter is a little confused. Not, as it turns out, because she doesn't speak English (as the non-handicapped woman ahead of me is assuming), but because the order in the bags doesn't come with marinara sauce.
"I'm sorry," the woman behind the counter says.
"A side of marinara," the faux-crippled lady says, a bit annoyed. "Could I get a side of marinara?"
The woman behind the counter still doesn't understand. Because of the stuffed mushrooms in the bag. That's what the annoying lady ordered. The mushrooms don't come with marinara. Not normally. But, then again, people who aren't handicapped don't park in handicapped spots. Not normally anyway.
"You know, marinara?" she says again. "The
red sauce? Marinara."
She never gets really pissy. She doesn't really raise her voice or anything. She just, you know, over-explains what marinara sauce is. To a woman who works at an Italian restaurant. Like the woman behind the counter has never heard of marinara sauce. One of the three sauces available on the menu. And let's face it, who would order something as bizarre as marinara sauce? At an
Italian restaurant?
When you think about it, it really is quite bizarre right?
They should probably fire that stupid woman behind the counter. That's the point of my story, I think.
Isn't it?
