Friday, August 17, 2007

Scene out of "As Good As It Gets"

Do you remember when Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt go to dinner at a fancy restaurant and they tell him that he needs to wear a jacket. Ok. We go into the Stone Barn Restaurant, the one that Lizzie recommended. I've got on a plaid short sleeve shirt, my cargo shorts with suspenders holding them up, and sandals. The lady at the front desk says, Welcome, do you have a reservation? We say yes. She then tells me that we cannot eat there unless I have pants on. I'm not happy. She says they will not budge because it's the house rules. I said nobody told us this when we made the reservation. She still will not budge. She then says, "Oh its not a problem. We have some pants for you to wear. What size are you?" Now, as fat as I am right now this was really a great subject that I truly loved discussing at the front desk of a fancy restaurant with other people standing around. So I go back to this room where they've got a total of 5 pair of pants hanging up. We picked out the only ones that could possibly work and she left me alone to change. The waist was not quite big enough around but more than made up for it by having legs about 4 inches too long. First I transferred my suspenders off my cargo shorts to the back of the pants. After I pulled them up and went to zip up the zipper I discovered it had buttons for the fly. So I worked on that for a little while and I got them all buttoned up. Then I pulled the front of my suspenders down and fastened them on the front of the pants. I figured OK all ready to go. I took one step and the suspender fasteners on the back of the pants popped off. The pants were lower than my cargo shorts and I had forgotten to lengthen my suspenders. I am not able to re-attach the back suspender fasteners while I still have the pants on because my mind wants to do everythng backwards when I try to do that. So, I take the pants off, reattach the suspenders, and then begin the buttoning process again. I finally was ready to eat in this fancy restaurant. I had on a plaid short sleeve shirt, suspenders and black pin striped suit pants that were piled up on top of my sandals. It was fun to eat there and I am glad we did it. The farm may be nonprofit but I can tell you that the restaurant is definitely for profit. It cost us $310 to eat there. I think they served us 10 different courses of food. Between each course they removed the dishes, and all the silverware off the table and placed new silverware back on the table. I have never ever seen such good service. For me, it was more of an experience than it was good food. The food was OK but I would rather eat at the Adobe in Yachats for $46 total for the two of us including the tip. The $310 included the tip. The meal was $260 and we added a $50 tip to it (can't have people thinking Yachat's dwellers are bad tippers). We actually had 4 waiters waiting our table. The other 3 times we have eaten out in nice restaurants here it cost between $90 and $110 including tip. So this place was a stratosphere one time experience for us.
Dad
If you click on the pic you can see it better-the pin stripes in particular

6 comments:

Danielle said...

Ha! What a funny story! You don't look very pleased to be wearing those pants in the picture. That is so funny. Sorry you had to go through that- they make you change AND pay 310? For that much money you should be able to go in your garments. Sounds like a fun little experience though. I like reading your posts dad- you should do it more often! I love you!!!

Lizzie said...

My question is, did they think you would look classier if you had pin-striped pants on with a plaid shirt and sandals? Why in the world didn't they tell you to wear pants on the phone?? 310 bucks. That's a lot of money for dinner. Although if you consider 10 courses, 10 place settings, 4 waiters, all locally grown/organic/free range food....sounds about right to me. I guess now I am glad Rebecca and I couldn't get in that night. I don't think Shad would have enjoyed the "experience" of seeing the bill on our credit card statement. And you do look mad in that picture. I'm glad I wasn't the hostess at that place.

Lizzie said...

One more question. Do you have more than one pair of cargo shorts and more than one plaid short-sleeved shirt? Because it looks like you wore the same outfit for 14 days in a row. Just concerned about your hygiene out there in NYC.

Megan and Greg said...

Oh my gosh, I just read the blog. That is so funny. I think I would've cried if that happened to me. I'm very curious as to how much the total bill of NY is going to be. Very curious. I wish I was rich like you guys :)

Karen K. said...

That was hysterical. Megan told me about this post today while she was cutting my hair. Of course I had to come home and read it. I'm wiping the tears away as I write. You should blog more, you're very funny. Now I'll have to read about the rest of the experience. Thanks for the entertainment. I really liked Lizzie's comment too...Did they really think you'd look classier...? --Karen Knerr (I'm Dolph Lundholm's daughter, and Sarah Knerr's mom)

AMY AND MIKEY said...

dad, that is too hilarious! That is so funny. i'm surprised they didn't give you a jacket. Ha. well- I hope you keep blogging because I love everything you write. I love you!