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The
Okey Dokey Incident by Sue Oakes
What
follows is a true account of what happened at this establishment, although
it has nothing to do with the food, service or management. I've patronized
it many times, although not lately, for reasons which will become obvious.
It had a split personality: a fun place for kids, (low prices on the kids
menu), with some nights having cartoon or TV characters entertaining in
the dining room (wanna eat with Barney?). But it also had a large bar,
catering to a twenty something crowd as well.
For a little background, several years ago, Ken used to travel pretty
regularly on business. Typically about twice a month for about 3 or 4
days at a time. He'd call me from these domestic ports of call, and regale
me with what exotic food he was eating at the moment. (I came to the
conclusion that some men have women in every city; mine has *restaurants*
in every city! I can compete with another woman, but not with a restaurant!)
So, I began to feel sorry for myself. Here I was stuck home with two
small kids, and he was eating all over the country on an expense account!
So, I thought, screw it! I'm eating out! Of course, I couldn't very well
frequent too many exotic places, so I'd look for establishments catering
to people like me: "Kids Eat Free!", "Kids Eat $.99".
I was there! My definition of fine dining at that time was anyplace I
didn't have to carry my own tray!
Okey Dokey was one of these places. This was many years ago, and my daughter
was probably around 4 or so, and Jeff would have been about 7 or 8. He
had a baseball game several miles from where we lived. After the game
was over, we wanted to eat dinner, as I had given up trying to force feed
them at 4:30 before the game. Ken was traveling, of course, so I was on
my own. I got in the car and started driving. After a while, I saw Okey
Dokey, and thought, good, we'll go there. However, my daughter had (and
still has) a problem with getting car sick. From all the driving, and
with her empty stomach, she got rather queasy. We made it to the restaurant
and I thought she'd be OK as soon as she got some food into her. We sat
down, and ordered. So what does she order in her present state? Macaroni
and Cheese! (She is extremely picky, so, whatever she wanted to eat, I
usually went along with it.)
I can't remember if this was before or after the *entree* was served,
but she didn't look well, and was complaining she didn't feel well. A
mother always knows when her kid is about to heave, and she looked ready.
Instinctively I grabbed an empty salad bowl and placed it under her face,
and voila! Up she chucked, but everything was contained in the salad
bowl! Before I even had the chance to congratulate myself on my quick
thinking, the waitress appeared. I handed her the now full salad bowl,
and said,
"OK, we're finished with this; you can take this now.", while
doing my best to avoid direct eye contact with her! Hey, what else could
I do? There was no time to take her to the ladies room, and it beat having
her vomit all over the table!
Believe it or not, we then proceeded to eat the next course. (After all,
Jeff and I had to eat dinner.) Cindy did eat some more food at this point,
and I thought she was OK, with her upset just from being car sick. As
we were getting ready to leave, she again told me she didn't feel well,
so I rushed her outside. However, my timing wasn't quite as good this
time. She made a *collage* of the various food stuffs from dinner outside,
right at the entrance way into the restaurant! At that point, I figured
my luck had run out, (among other things) so I made a clean getaway to
the parking lot. I've never been back. I wouldn't be surprised if there
is a picture of me and my kids in the window of this establishment, banning
our patronage, to this very day! |
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