The kids chose the restaurant to treat me to for my birthday.
It’s a neat place on a nearby lake, specializing in what can only be described as the world’s biggest hamburger.
I have never ordered the burger because the truth is, it has become synonymous with being a “guy thing.” Men from all over flock to this place while their wives host wedding/baby showers, sip cosmos and talk about their feelings and the men drink beer and discuss football while wrestling in a huge vat of lard.
There are a number of high end cottages/homes surrounding the restaurant with a trailer park on either side. With a real socio-economic mix of diners, there was one table in particular that caught my eye when it was our turn to order.
I had decided for reasons I can’t explain, in part perhaps because it was my birthday, I was going to order this mammoth burger. A burger so great, its name escapes me. In fact, I don’t think it’s even on the menu. Through a series of non-verbal cues, hand gestures and eyebrow furls, a senior member of the wait staff sketches a cartoon hamburger patty on the key-locked part of the spiral ordering pad and returns with the you-know-what.
It was the exchange between the trailer park yachtsmen that really had me annoyed.
Was it because I was a girl? Because it was my birthday? Because I was a mother of three, young, impressionable girls who might one day also attempt to wolf down a disproportionate amount of ground beef to bun in public they felt entitled to judge my order?
Burger pusher: Would you like a garden salad or fries with that?
Yachtsmen watching with great interest as they sipped their light beers, polo collars on high alert for my answer.
Me: I’ll have the poutine please.
Of course they didn’t have poutine, I was just trying to prove I was willing to stuff my liver like the goose I was to be sold as foie gras at fine dining establishments the world over. That or I could excuse myself to purge in the bathroom. Something else we girls are good at.
Waitress: And to drink?
I would typically go with sparkling water but I knew I had to trump typical and think filling.
Me: Shrimp cocktail please.
The two men high fived with their eyes, an unspoken wager between the two there was no way this girl was finishing any of this, far more interesting than wrestling each other in animal fat.
I knew my vision would soon be blurred. If I drained the blow up pool and drank all of the water in its entirety, I might one day have a chance to strap on my shoes when the swelling in my ankles finally deflated but for now, this was all worth it.
Last night’s sleep was rather unpleasant to say the least. I experienced a series of meat related night-sweats with a bottle of bedside TUMS guiding the gastro-intestinal parade back to home base.
Happy Birthday to me.
Winning.
