HAVE YOU SEEN MY FORK?

Fourteen years is a long time to be married to someone. Will and I tell each other periodically that we are about to trade the other in for a new and younger model. But, then we think about it some more and come to the realization that the new and younger models aren’t going to want the used and older ones, so we stick it out just for kicks.

Everyone that knows Will and I well also knows that we give each other a hard time every day. It’s our way. We like to laugh. We are proud of the fact that we still laugh together after all these years.

So, when we headed to Charleston recently to celebrate our anniversary, I knew that we would most certainly have some adventures along the way. The first night there, we decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We didn’t have any particular place in mind. We decided we would just stop when something looked good.

We came upon a place and went in. Now, we were in jeans. We are jeans kind of people. As soon as we walked in, I realized that we had made a mistake. Everyone was dressed to the nines. I asked the hostess if there was a dress code and she said no.

Then, she asked Will if we were celebrating a birthday or other event and he said that it was our anniversary trip. We were told that they only had one table available and it was on the 3rd floor of the restaurant, against a wall. Will said we’d take it.

We climbed steep stairs and arrived at a very isolated table. It literally felt like we were sitting in someone’s attic. There were no people. There were no other tables. It was just us. It sounds like it could be romantic, but it was actually very odd.

As soon as the hostess walked away, we started laughing. We couldn’t help it. This is the kind of stuff that happens to us everywhere we go. Maybe it was because we had on jeans that they decided to hide us up there in that attic, or maybe it was truly the only table they had.

The waiter arrived at our table dressed in some fancy tuxedo type outfit and told us Happy Anniversary. The hostess had apparently passed along the news. We were asked if we wanted sparkling water, mineral water, or regular water to start. Of course, we started laughing again and told him that we would just take the tap water. He looked a little bewildered and off he went to get it. While he was gone, we did our best imitations of rich people saying, “I must have the sparkling water only. No tap water for me. What do you think I am? A peasant?”

He came back with the water and a little basket that had all kind of fancy looking bread in it. Some of it was flat like a pancake, and crispy. Some of it was rolled into skinny little sticks. Will grabbed one of the pancake looking ones which turned out to be about the size of a dinner plate and sat there and ate it like a pizza.

Once we reviewed the menu, we determined that #1, this place was expensive and #2, we couldn’t read half the stuff on the menu. We ended up ordering steak because we knew what that was.

I ordered filet mignon with fries and Will got New York strip with mashed potatoes. While we waited on the food, we ate our fancy bread and talked about how Willis would love to have some of the skinny shaped ones and wished we could put some in our pockets to take home to him.

I have to talk about the silverware arrangement. We had a lot of it. For some reason, I kept putting mine in one big stack. I was doing this without realizing it. And each time the waiter would come around, he would re-arrange it. I kept him busy re-organizing my silverware the whole meal. I don’t know why I kept stacking it up. Maybe it was so I could see everything I had to choose from in one glance. After each course, he would come and steal some of our silverware. I told Will, “That dude just came and stole my little fork. That was the cutest fork I had!”

Later, our server arrived at our table with two fancy bent spoons that each had something on them. He told us that it was a treat on him and it was an appetizer for us. It was one bite of food and neither one of us had a clue as to what it was. But, we felt obligated to try it. It was some kind of meat on a little crispy triangle looking thing. Let me tell you, it was gross! Neither one of us liked it at all and had a hard time not gagging. The waiter came back and asked us how it was and, of course, we told him, “It was great!” He told us it was tuna tartar. I’m here to tell y’all. I don’t want any more tuna tartar as long as I live!

Our food finally arrived and that was one of the best steaks I have ever eaten in my life. It came with all these fancy little sauces, like truffle butter. I could have drunk that truffle butter, it was so good. The fries weren’t so good. They reminded me of those potato stick things that come in cans for like 99 cents. They served them to me in a fancy metal cone which Will said reminded him of the Tin Man’s hat from Wizard of Oz.

The waiter had talked Will into getting his steak “Pittsburgh style”. Will said if it had Pittsburgh in the name, then it must be good. They took his steak, cut it down the middle, poured some type of sugar glaze in it, re-sealed it, and cooked it. It turned out to be really tough and he was disappointed, but he did love the mashed potatoes.

At the end, the server asked what we wanted for dessert. Since we were already going to have to wash the dishes to pay for what we had, we declined. We told him we were stuffed. He then told us that they were going to pay for it as a present for our anniversary. Now, that was a different story. We suddenly had more room in our stomachs!

We ordered a slice of devils food cake, with chocolate butter cream icing, and layers of chocolate ganache. What they came back with was absolutely enormous. This piece of cake was HUGE! It had about 16 layers. They wrote “Happy Anniversary” on our plate in chocolate and put a tiny, tiny glass of milk on there too with caramel as the glue to hold the glass down. Will drank the milk in one swallow. I am normally not a chocolate cake eater, but this stuff was good…really good. We couldn’t finish it all and they wrapped it up for us. It was even better the next day.

On our walk back to the room, we decided that was one of our most memorable meals. We had a great time seeing ourselves in such a fancy environment. Perhaps that was the best anniversary present we could have given each other….a reminder that even after all these years, we still like to laugh together.