Olive Garden...hooray breadsticks

The other day a friend and I went out to eat, we decided to overpay for some noodles, so we went to Olive Garden. That’s right, let the mystery consume you…who could this mystery friend be? It really got me thinking, don’t get me wrong, I love Olive Garden, but Olive Garden is really kind of full of herself isn’t she? I say Olive Garden is a she because for some reason when people want to refer to inanimate objects as a gender, they always refer to them as female. Like if you are talking about a car you say something along the lines of, “She’s got a lot of horse power.” Or “Isn’t she a beaut?” I guess it is because saying, “He’s got a lot of horse power” sounds funny? Also, most of the people working at the OG are female, and let’s face it; most of the males are pretty much female. May be I just pissed off some of the males there but what are they going to do? Slap me to death? Anyway the more I think about it the more I don’t like the attitude that Olive Garden has. To me Olive Garden is that sister marrying, trailer dwelling, toothless redneck that won the lotto and all of a sudden thinks he is cultured. Picture a guy with an Armani suit with a Dale Earnhardt hat on, pouring a golden cup of boxed wine…or just picture Britney Spears…now make her dance a little…yeah that’s it.
Olive Garden can try to pretend to be as fancy as it wants, but when I look around and see a majority of the customers are sporting their favorite motor oil brand on their jacket they bought with Camel Bucks, I know the truth. Which is fine with me, I come from an area where I thought a fancy restaurant was one without a bar. The thing that really irks me about Olive Garden is that the people there automatically think you are retarded (your lame joke here about how you think I’m retarded_________ my semi witty comeback here___________). The first thing they ask you when you sit down is whether you have been there before or not…as if Olive Garden is so different from other restaurants that they have to ask. Gee, I’ve never had this handy fold out menu before; it really takes the strain off the neck from reading items off the wall at my usual place. Not only that but they start explaining the menu to me whether I say I’ve been there before or not. Sure sometimes the waiters aren’t that bad at giving the talk, and as long as they don't mind me making sex eyes (which is me squinting at her as hard as I can) at them I don’t mind them explaining to me what a meat ball is (which I am told is a ball of meat). But most of the time it is just really awkward with me trying to put on my “I’m interested” face, which I recently realized looks very similar to my “I think I’m giving birth” face. I’m not really sure why I have a “I think I’m giving birth” face, but it is too late to change who I am now.

I’m also not really sure why it takes five minutes to explain the inner workings of the menu. Which may not seem like a long time to you, but when I’m waiting for breadsticks it seems like a life time. Besides as far as I can decipher there isn’t anything tricky about the menu. It is your typical menu, a list of foods grouped by similarities, available in exchange for some sort of payment. I don’t see any moving parts or fancy equations I need to solve. It’s not in crossword or jumble style, and I’m not 65 and from the state of Florida, so I really don’t understand why they feel the need to point out their “new” items. Listen…I get it…the new items have the word “NEW” conveniently typed next to them. And like I said, I’ve been here before…your “new” items are the same “new” items that were here the last time I was here. Also believe it or not, I am aware that they have invented the menu insert. I know there are sometimes two menus, one being the regular menu and the other being the specials for that period of time. Does this mean that there are people who have gone to OG and been so lost that they decided to explain everything? Did someone one day walk in and ask if they had a play place? Did they get the two menus and become confused, thinking that may be Olive Garden was supplying them with a menu from a similar establishment for comparison? Did they not know how to use a menu? May be they just started licking it and thinking that would bring them food. Anyway, Olive Garden…get over yourself…