G'Day Mate.........

Hubby and I had dinner tonight at his favorite place, the steakhouse where they have a map of the world upside down and sell wonderful deep-fried onions. You know the one.

Our waitress kind of got on my nerves. She kept "checking" on us, and she kept interrupting my answers to her questions with an explanation of what it was she was asking.

I told Hubby she was getting on my nerves, and he said, "Better than some." [He's a man of few words.]

So that made me feel bad about saying she got on my nerves. And I overtipped her. Perhaps it worked for her.

Being there reminded me of way back in 2001, the day after 9/11.

Hubby had to be in town for a meeting, and I was there for one of my graduate classes (that was the semester I thought it might be a good idea to take TWO doctoral courses, one which met on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the other on FRIDAY NIGHT!!! What was I thinking?). Hubby suggested we meet at the Australian-themes steakhouse for a rare mid-week dinner out. I jumped at the chance because I basically will jump at any chance NOT to cook.

When I got out of school, I had a message on my cell phone from Hubby saying the meeting had been canceled. He said something like "Apparently they are afraid we'll be bombed by some terrorists."

I was disappointed but not devastated. I went on home after school, but Hubby was not there. I waited for a while, thinking he might have gone to the golf course to move the tees. That was how he earned free golf back then.

I waited some more, puzzled by his absence. Then it occurred to me to listen to his message again.

It was from the day before, the day the 9/11 attacks occurred. The meeting had originally been scheduled for Tuesday.

I called the restaurant, because Hubby didn't have a cell phone back then. [Does anyone notice how many of my stories are due to the absence of Hubby's cell phone? Perhaps if I run into a dry spell, I'll just take his phone away.]

[Ring, ring]

Person: _______ Steakhouse.

Me: Hello, I'm wondering if my husband is there. He'll probably be sitting in the bar. His name is _____ ______.

Person: What does he look like?

Me: Ummmmm...... [How the hell are you supposed to answer this question anyway?]

Person: What color hair does he have?

Me: He doesn't have any hair. He's probably wearing a cap.

Person: What is he wearing?

Me [What went through my head]: I don't know if he's wearing his Pepsi uniform or regular clothes.

Me [What I actually said]: I don't know. The last time I saw him he wasn't wearing any clothes at all.

We exchanged a few more of these questions and non-answers. Then --

Person: There's only one guy at the bar. I'll go see if that's him.

Couldn't we have skipped most of that?