What About Poor Mary?

Some mighty odd coincidences

Once in a great while, when our wonderful friends Andre and Mary are passing by our little city, they’ll stop in for a visit, and a bite to eat.

Their visit before last, they stopped by the house. We talked up our then favorite lunch place, and convinced them to head on over with us to get a great lunch.

Well, poor Mary ordered a turkey sandwich, and I have to say, it had to be the sorriest looking turkey sandwich I ever saw in my entire life. Simply awful. That was a part of a string of events that led us to stop going to that former favorite, forever.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Since that time, we’ve come to a new favorite place. We probably have lunch there two, or three, maybe four times a week. Not long ago I remember mentioning to Melinda that we’ve never had anything less than a great meal there.

This past Saturday, Andre and Mary came to visit again.

Now, you’ve got to understand, we’ve been felling pretty darn bad about that God awful turkey sandwich Mary got on her last visit for quite a few months now. Andre and Mary have always been really good to us, so we feel guilty about the fact that when they come here, poor Mary ends up starving based on our recommendation.

But, we figure it’s A-OK now.

We’ve got a new favorite place. We go there constantly. The food is always excellent.

So, we convince them to join us for lunch at our new favorite place.

Now, I should mention, as an aside, that the regular weekend cook has just moved to Tacoma, so this past Saturday was the first day the new cook was there all by herself. We figure all will be just fine though, because she’s been training with the old cook for awhile.

Off we go.

Poor Mary orders a French Dip.

A few minutes later the cook comes by. Declares that they don’t have what they need to make a French Dip.

Poor Mary orders a Reuben instead.

A few minutes later the cook comes back. Declares that they don’t have what they need to make a Reuben.

Poor Mary orders a Patty Melt instead.

Now, I figure we are safe with all three of these choices. If only they had the stuff. I’ve had their French Dips, awesome. I’ve had their Reubens fairly often, excellent. And Melinda orders the Patty Melt all the time.

Mary actually gets her Patty Melt.

And it’s the saddest looking Patty Melt I’ve ever seen in my life. Pretty much no grilled onions, pretty much no cheese, only the tiniest possible, overcooked, hamburger patty, stuck between two pieces of unbuttered but toasted rye bread. That thing looked as dry as Las Vegas in August.

Melinda had ordered the same thing, wouldn’t eat all of hers, made me eat half. Yep, that thing was awful. My own lunch wasn’t much better, and wasn’t what I ordered.

We took care of it today. We wandered in, had a great lunch, then told the regular weekday cook that the new weekend cook just ain’t gonna work. Apparently we weren’t the first ones to mention it, we’re told that the new weekend cook isn’t the new weekend cook anymore.

So, that’s good.

But what about poor Mary?

We’re starting to think that not only are we starving her each time she and Andre come for a visit, but at this point, it might look like we’re intentionally doing it! I don’t know, is poor Mary just destined to starve when she visits our little city? Cursed? What else could it be?

If this keeps up, they’ll probably start refusing to come visit us!

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