When dinner goes awry... hide in the bathroom and write

I have escaped to the very luxurious, huge bathroom of a 5-star (and then some) restaurant where I am attending a dinner party as a guest of people who can afford such 5-star restaurants (Red Lobster on coupons is more my style).  The reason for my escape?  The subject matter is currently focusing on foie gras.  (For those of you who don't know, that would be the sickened fatty liver of ducks who have had a tube forcibly rammed down their throats as it spews corn mixed with fat into their stomachs with the intent of making them as ill as possible.  Otherwise known as tortured duck liver.  Somehow it's still legal.)  I tried to change the subject by flat out telling them I was getting nauseous, but that didn't work.  Because of the recent attempted ban on it in California, someone at the table who loves it had to order it in protest.  And talk about it.  In detail.  So I am in the bathroom, staring at stalls that each look like a miniature spa.  Heated floors, wood counter, sink, wall-to-wall mirror, luxury soaps and lotions, moist towels and dry towels, flowers... in each stall.  Wandering the halls of this bathroom, I have already gotten lost once.  I've also googled the name of the miniature lotions they have -- A full-size bottle of it would be $50.  It smells exactly like my $11 bottle of Bath & Body Works' White Tea and Ginger.  Oh and there are illustrations on various buttons on the toilets to demonstrate what they can do....  They look painful and look as if they involve a pitchfork.  I assume there is not actually a pitchfork that reaches out of the toilet, but I suppose anything is possible at this restaurant.  On my way to the bathroom, I passed a bottle of whiskey that the hostess said costs $150 for one shot.  A shot.

Dinner hasn't exactly been smooth sailing up until now either.  There was nothing on the menu I wanted to eat, so I attempted to order a salad with the dressing on the side. The waiter wouldn't let me order just a salad; I had to order an entrée -- despite the fact that the rest of the table was ordering hundreds of dollars worth of food and drink, and the salads were priced as high as an entrée at a mid-level restaurant.  When I explained there was no entrée I could eat, trying not to make a scene for the rest of the table, they nevertheless insisted I had to order one.  So I requested it instead be boxed up and given to a homeless shelter.  Needless to say, that didn't fly at swanky-stuck-up French restaurant.  When he gave me attitude, I nicely told the waiter that he could bring me the meal, and I would box it up myself and feed it to the homeless man I'd passed 50 feet from their door on the way in.  The waiter blew his top and was replaced with a different waiter.  I haven't seen original mean French waiter since then.  I succeeded in getting just a salad, but not in getting the dressing on the side: "The chef does not intend to have the dressing on the side. He must determine the amount on it." 

 

I like going out to restaurants.  Hypothetically, I like dressing up and going to a nice fancy restaurant every once in a while.  However, sometimes what I like more than that is escaping to the bathroom to write about it.  I guess I'll press "post" now and head back out.  Next time I go out to eat I think it's going to be at a diner.