Dear college roommate C and I had dinner last night at the Cheesecake Factory. It was downright hilarious watching her approach the 20 page menu. Every time I go to the Cheesecake (which is not that often, thank you and thank God) I am amazed, again, at a spiral-bound menu with page numbers (that the servers rattle off with aplomb) and advertising. Who had the idea to sell advertising in the menu? That’s somewhere between horrifying and genius.
I told C about how I spent New Year’s Eve 2002 at the Cheesecake with Matt and Grace. Grace was in her enormous carseat and spent most of the short dinner wailing. I spent most of the dinner walking up and down the aisles of the airplane hangar sized restaurant with her over my shoulder, still wailing. The 6pm Cheesecake Factory crowd on New Year’s Eve leaves, shall we say, something to be desired. In short it was not one of my favorite nights.
But C’s eyes lit up. “I can beat that!” she exclaimed.
“No way.” I challenged her.
“Last year. Christmas Eve. The dry – make sure you hear that part, DRY – Fuddrucker’s in Dubai. All three kids.”
You win.