Down and out in the suburban paradise

- 2 minutes read - 401 words

Yours truly, P-Dizzle, and Jeff occasioned to go out to dine yesterday evening. Frequent are the times that we head to Fiesta del Mar for margaritas and the mysterious, tasty, and orange enjococado sauce.

But that was not the case last night. Instead we were out to get a steak with chivas, or so Jeff had proclaimed. We headed up to Palo Alto to this pretty nice looking steakhouse called “Sundowner”. Along the way we saw the usual lather rinse repeat formula of the South Bay: Strip mall, gas station, office building.

Upon reaching the Sundowner we were told that we were in for a 2 hour wait. That’s too much for “a few drinks” so there we stood, hungry and without other recourse.

We decided to make an odyssey into the life of the surburbanite South Bay family - we hit “The Olive Garden”.

I’m laughing as I type that.

It’s not so much that it’s bad food it’s just that we just don’t go to chain establishments. In fact, I had largely forgotten that they even existed.

Jeff and I recalled that the OG had been good when it first started but had made a huge downhill slide. By our boom-bust reasoning, we gathered that they must be somewhere in the stride of their “it’s decent now” and so we went.

The first thing I noticed was that everyone was young. I mean, even the barkeep looked too young to be sloshing me a martini (btw. he did as good a job as the guys up in the city). We then ordered the food and received the bounteous breadsticks and endless salad.

I sat there regarding the families and dating couples of simpler means (mostly Stanford students by the look of it) and recalled that somewhere beyond the embryonic awareness of the single person sans restraint there is a world where my immediate surroundings qualifies as escape.

The fact that i find this quaint means that I must be some sort of horrible snob (guilty on multiple fronts, apparently) or that this is the promised reward of “good grades / good college / good job” - forgetting that these places exist…

In any case we headed back to Jeff’s place to watch “Ray” and sample the mysterious liquer known as Campari. I like mine with OJ, but it’s definitely an acquired taste.

I’ll stick with the gin and juice.