My family comes here every year to celebrate Thanksgiving. My parents come up the day before, but since my brother and sister-in-law both have to work that Friday, we have our big meal Saturday afternoon.
We needed to eat something on Thanksgiving Day, of course, so I asked Mama what she wanted me to cook.
"Are there restaurants around here that are open on Thanksgiving Day?" she asked.
I was surprised, but happy to tell her that yes, there were restaurants open.
I picked a home-cooking restaurant that I knew they would love. My Daddy is very much a meat-and-potatoes man. So I figured a meat-and-three place would be right up his alley.
We got there, and the place was packed! And there were only a couple of servers. Apparently, the owner/manager didn't think they would have that many customers. He got fooled for sure!
Our server came by and said he would be with us as soon as he could. We all told him to take his time because we weren't in a hurry. That seemed to put him at ease, which of course meant he was going to take good care of us.
He took our drink orders, and when he came back to get our food orders, I told Biscuit to go ahead and order what he wanted.
"Um, could I please have a cheeseburger, plain, and some fries?" Biscuit asked.
"I gotcha big man," the server said. "I like your independence - ordering your own food like that."
The server told us that he really enjoyed serving kids who could speak for themselves. But he said that sometimes the parents are the problem.
"There was one lady who started ordering for her son, but he was trying to tell her that what she was ordering wasn't what he wanted," the server said. "So the kid kept saying what he wanted. And what was funny was that what the kid was saying he wanted was actually more nutritious than what the mom was ordering from him!"
Everybody else ordered, and since there were so many people still there, it took them a while to bring our food out.
Jeff ordered the Thanksgiving special - turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, etc. and it included a dessert, too.
So at the end of the meal, the server brought Jeff a piece of pecan pie. He slid the saucer toward Jeff, and Jeff said, "I actually can't have pecan pie."
The server must have assumed it was because of an allergy because he jerked that saucer away from Jeff so fast that he almost slung the pie into the floor. Jeff told him it was because of diverticulitis, and the server gave him a choice of some other desserts to choose from.
Then the server looked over at Biscuit.
"Hey, big man," he said, and Biscuit looked up and grinned, "do you like chocolate cake?"
Biscuit had some food in his mouth, so he just nodded.
When the server came back, he gave Jeff a piece of cheesecake and Biscuit a hunk of chocolate bundt cake with a thick chocolate icing.
Biscuit looked at the cake then looked at all of us with big eyes.
"Guys," Biscuit said, "Since that man was nice enough to give me free cake, I'm going to be very polite when I eat this."
He picked up his knife and fork and went to town on that hunk of chocolate. In a very polite way, of course.
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