"what are we doing?"

4 words uttered by weston saturday night at about 7:05. we had been invited to have dinner at Olive Garden in Provo with Mark & Amanda and kids and Rory. "what are we doing?" meaning - why are we attempting to go to Olive Garden ... in Provo ... at 7pm ... on saturday night. we should have known what kind of night we were in for when we got through the doors of the restaurant and the employees were saying it was about a 75-80 minute wait. rory had already been there for about 40 minutes, so we were hoping to have cut that time in half. after about 20 minutes of being packed like sardines in the waiting area, we were told it would still be about 40 minutes until we would be seated. at that point, however, we were all salivating for our salad and breadsticks that we were fully committed. the next sign of impending doom should have been our buzzer going off and our group letting out excited screams ... only to find out, "oops, sorry, that was a mistake, we're still not ready to seat you ... probably about 20 more minutes." rrrriiiiiggggghhhhhtttt. so we waited some more. the highlight of the wait was a sample cup of some pina colada and then a sherbety citrusy drink later on. finally we were taken to our table. our waiter came to take our drink orders, writing it all down. i ordered a water with lemon and rory got a water with lime (everyone else had sodas). rory and i got our waters, but no slices of citrus fruit. mark and amanda then ordered an appetizer sampler, including calamari. when the appetizer plate finally made its way out, there was no calamari. our waiter decided to play hide and seek with us, as we only saw him once every 15 minutes or so. about the third time he resurfaced, we asked about the second salad bowl we had requested, the missing calamari order, more breadsticks, and the lemons and limes. the kid was incompetent to say the least. he came back about 10 minutes later, with ONE salad bowl (we had requested a SECOND bowl, not the next replacement bowl), no cheese on the salad (come on! who doesn't load up the salad and soup with that cheesy goodness?), a plate of lemon and lime slices thrown at us, and a few more breadsticks for a table of 7. this kid of a waiter also called mark "dude" and mumbled excuses out at us AS he would leave the table. it was ridiculous. to make matters worse, not only had we been seated for about 45 minutes, had ordered 3 entries for the table, and nobody had received more than one refill on their empty drinks ... but the table to our left had been seated, received their dishes, finished, and were paying! in fact, most tables around us were pleasantly being served. a manager/cook in his kung fu shirt made the rounds from table to table in our area, asking patrons how their dinners were, etc. and, just as rory was gearing up to let him have it, he glided right on by our table. wow. it was just unbelievable! finally, after being in the restaurant for about 2 hours, we decided to leave - this was AFTER our waiter showed up and blamed the kitchen for our missing food - sorry "dude" i have a hard time believing anything you say when everyone around us is eating what they ordered AFTER us ... and it's kind of hard for the kitchen to make our food when you never place the order for us. poor mark and amanda had each taken turns taking noah outside or for a quick car ride, neither of them were able to enjoy much of the night out, i'm sure. we flagged down the manager, in all of her david bowie hair glory (seriously, there are no words - it was a 'do you had to experience yourself) and she tried to appease the situation by offering a $40 gift card for our next evening out together. sure, $40 might seem like a nice gesture, but really? that is supposed to cover another dinner for FIVE adults? that's dinner for TWO. we could all make the trek to Olive Garden again to relive the nightmare, and we could each order a specialty drink and a salad. Thanks Olive Garden.

as we piled back into the car, mark and amanda asked zoe if she was still hungry (since there really wasn't much FOOD on the table for 2 kids to enjoy). poor thing picked olive garden because it's her birthday this week and that's what she wanted for dinner. so we stopped by the wendy's drive-thru on the way home to get her the chicken nuggets kids meal. when she asked her dad if she could see her toy, we shouldn't have been surprised AT ALL when there was no toy to be found. NOTHING. what is going on with this night? oh, and weston and i each ordered a small frosty - you guessed it - no spoons or straws. SA-WEET.

mark and amanda dropped us off at our place and we decided to head over to cafe rio (with 15 minutes until they closed) to get our "saturday night regular" so we could have the leftovers on sunday. this was our last stop of dining out for the evening, and we shouldn't have been surprised when the guy taking our order got it all wrong - AGAIN. i asked for a pork burrito, black beans, mild sauce, enchilada style - 4 options. he started to make my burrito - with chicken, not pork, and asked me pinto beans? when i realized it was chicken, not pork, i asked about it and he dumped what he was making and started over. why do they always look at you like YOU messed things up? whatever. he made my new burrito and asked every step of the way what I had already ordered. "black beans?" "yes" "mild sauce?" "yes" "enchilada style?" "yes" i'm sorry - how hard is it? weston pretty much had the same experience, right behind me. WOW.

so, i guess the moral of the story is, don't waste your saturday night out on dining out :) but what's more american than a night out on saturday? come on!