Today is my mother’s birthday.
Because I have to work tonight, I thought I would take her out to lunch at her favorite restaurant…which I happen to work at.
So, after leaving the house late, we finally make it to lunch, and request to sit with my boyfriend Johnnie. Now the manager on duty has butted heads with dear ol’ Johnnie, so I am not expecting him to comply, yet surprisingly, he does. Today this manager is all smiles and “How are yous?”, and its unnerving to say the least. But hey, maybe the boys had a chat and worked it all out. Who knows.
Now Johnnie and I have managed to keep our relationship under wraps for about a month now, and thankfully it has stayed that way. Not that we are trying to hide it…but there are certain characters that I would like to keep in the dark. Well, not so today. As soon as he comes to the table, Johnnie’s giving my mother and I kisses and the whole thing just reeks of a Norman Rockwell moment. And I want to be upset about the PDA, but deep down, I can’t help but admit that I was smitten with his behavior and attention.
We order, and everything is just peachy, until he spills my side of dressing on his hand and begins to flick it off…all over my poor mother. At this point, I am waiting for him to realize what he is doing, and my mom is just sitting there getting rained on, but it took a moment. And in his defense, he was nervous…but it was the funniest and most random thing to happen, and all on her birthday to boot.
Needless to say, he felt terrible. Even though it wasn’t a big deal, we all laughed about it, and good natured ribbing ensued. My other manager was nice enough to come over and chat my mom up for a while, and it was perfect timing as a decoy for Johnnie to sneak my mom’s cake to the table.
Of course though, even that went wrong. We usually always order this chocolate mascarpone cake with raspberries and Johnnie ordered it with raspberries. But for some reason or another, to the Mexican guys working the line, raspberries and strawberries look alike, and the cake came out with strawberries slathered all over it. True, it was a ‘had to be there’ moment, but it was the icing on the proverbial cake for the perfect screwed up birthday lunch.
The cool thing is that my mom likes stuff like that, and is a firm believer that when things go wrong they make for more interesting stories, so we are all looking forward to sharing this at the next barbecue. And as an added plus, Johnnie and I at least got to see each other today, and have a little fun time in the process. Which only strengthens my belief in the fact that its not what you do, its truly who you do it with. Today was just an ordinary lunch…until you put the three of us in the mix together, and then it became an extraordinary birthday lunch extravaganza!
Happy Birthday Mom!
