Smoochies for the Chef

American Gothic

So, K has this thing for breadsticks.  Primarily those from Olive Garden, but she’ll take other, lesser forms as well.  I’m pretty sure that if marooned on a desert island, if she had to pick only three available food groups, it would be breadsticks, cheese sticks, and milk.

She had been asking for breadsticks for the last few days, and started to get CM thinking that Olive Garden did actually sound pretty good.  So tonight we went out for dinner.  Now, eating out with K is always a roll of the dice.  Most of the time she is pretty well behaved for a preschooler, but occasionally she puts on her demon face and terrorizes the general public.

Tonight she was actually very good, but very animated.  We got a young-ish male waiter, who obviously wasn’t all that used to kids.  For starters, when he very first came to the table to take our drink order, K blurted out “BREADSTICKS”.  He looked a little startled, stepped back a few inches and gamely carried on taking our order.

When he came to get the food order, she wiggled in her chair but patiently waited until we had ordered and then blurted out “YUMMY BREADSTICKS”.  He was a little less obvious this time, but clearly still a little wary of the short person that may or may not be prone to unprovoked breadstick karate attacks.

After the food had arrived, and we were collectively enjoying our dinner, he stopped by to ask if we needed anything.  We replied that everything was great, thanked him, and he started to walk away.  At which point K leaned over into the aisle a bit, and loudly said “YUMMY!”.  He did a total doubletake with a scared look on his face and then just kept right on walking back to the kitchen.  K looks at me in a puzzled way and says “I was just telling the chef about YUMMY breadsticks”.  I tried not to laugh too much.

After the next visit, she didn’t attempt to talk to him but again as he was walking away she leans into the aisle and starts loudly smooching her hand and “throwing” kisses to the “chef”.  She tells me, “I am sending lots of smooches to the chef and restaurant for breadsticks”.  This time, he didn’t turn around at all, but nervously kept walking while I tried not to hyperventilate from holding back my laughter.

He looked very scared the next time he came to the table.  He needn’t have worried, because she had totally lost interest in him by that point.

But as she was clearly done eating and getting into the boredom phase, she noticed that there was an old (think American Gothic) couple at the table behind us watching her. I don’t know what possessed her, but she reached down, took off her big, pink, dirty croc, and pulled it up and held it triumphantly over the table.  “LOOK, I got my shoe!!!!”

Now, they looked VERY scared, like she was possibly going to throw it at them or spontaneously turn into the exorcist child.  I, of course, being a responsible parent, immediately asked her to return her shoe to her foot and reminded her that shoes don’t belong on or above the table.  She had a definite glimmer in her eye though, like “yeah but I won that round.”

That’s my girl.