February 15,2009

I survived another Valentine’s Day. Don’t take it the wrong way but Valentine’s Day has never been my favorite holiday. This might have been caused by the wrong choice of spouse, or a spot of bad porridge. I’m getting better. Mrs. Raballard and I have been married for 51/2 years, and with each passing year I loathe Valentine’s Day less and less.

Another thing about Valentine’s Day is the day is set aside for the romantics. I will be the second one to admit, I am not romantic. Mrs. Raballard knew this before she married me, and married me anyway. It’s not that I don’t love her; she knows I love her with all my heart (pacemaker included). I tell her constantly about my undying love, I just have no idea how to show it.

This blog is not about Valentine’s Day, nor is it about love. It’s about trying to get into any kind of a restaurant on Valentine’s Day without a reservation.

OK I here you all snickering. Some of you might be echoing Mrs. Raballard’s response. “YOU didn’t get a reservation? I said you should get a reservation weeks ago.” Yes she asked me to get a reservation; yes I had every intention of making a reservation. I have a good excuse. I forgot.
I do have an innate dislike for reservations anyway, most likely caused by my OCD condition. Let me give you an example. Say you make a reservation at Red Lobster, you are duty bound to eat at Red Lobster. It is etched in stone, there is no way out. Any semblance of spontaneity has been chucked out the window. If I were to wake up on the day we had reservations and find that today was not a good day to eat at a restaurant with an “R” in its name, I would be doomed. I made the reservation in advance, I had no idea that my cosmic anti “R” day would strike on that particular day. My universe would swing out of kilter. To simplify this blog, I Raballard did not make a reservation.

Informed by my know-it-all wife that it would be virtuously impossible to find a place to eat at such a short notice, and we should try The Village Inn first. I of course told her everything would be alright, while I was trying to decide if 3:59 on a Saturday gave sufficient time to make a reservation for 5 o’clock.

“Hey Mr. Flyby The Seat of Your Pants” (one of her endearments for me) maybe if we get there early we might be able to get in.

What have we got to lose? Springfield Missouri is a small town in Southwest Missouri. The population is just over 200,000 (which is small in my book). There is a Chinese Buffet on practically every corner. There are plenty of other fine restaurants to go around. I am positive we will find one.

Our first choice was Logan’s Steakhouse, after circling the parking lot, and the adjacent parking lots, we decided we weren’t in the mood for steak anyway.

TGI Fridays was our next choice. I am positive if we had chosen that restaurant on Friday we would have been in luck. Patrons were overflowing into the street.

We had similar luck at Chili’s, Chucky Cheese, Crispy Cream, The Mall Food Court, and The Café at Borders.

I had a brilliant idea; we should see just how bad our economy really is. Our next choice was a $35 dollar a plate Brazilian Restaurant. You know the type? It is a restaurant where they bring you all kinds of yummy meats on a skewer. This is not a place for vegetarians. We manage to get past the PETA picketers, find a place to park. The waiting list for placing your name on the list for placing your name on the seating list is 40 minutes.

I was a bit discouraged by this time, and more than perturbed at Mrs. Raballard from her constant “It’s OK”. It wasn’t OK I was getting hungry, we had to fill our tank up for the second time, and I was beginning to loathe Valentine’s Day again.

Around 9:30, tired and hungry, we pulled into a McDonalds near our home. I tipped the maître de an extra $5 to get us near the top of the list. Mrs. Raballard said it wasn’t the maître de, I disagreed, and we placed our name on the list, and waited the required 40 minutes for our name to come up. I ate my Happy Meal in silence, silently fuming.

Should I have made a reservation? Probably, Mrs. Raballard is always right. Will I make a reservation next year? Probably not, I am still OCD, and always will be.

(PS I am thinking of making a “What I have learned from other Blogs” a bi-weekly Blog. The last one seemed to go over well. Comment me and let me know what you think. I always love comments)