November 13, 2002

Yes, you can't!

SORRY ABOUT LAST week's tearjerker. This week I'll take you with me back to the Oakland airport to pick up Crawdad de la Cooter, and things should be all-around peachier. Right? Niners have just beaten the Raiders, let's say, in overtime, and even though I'll have to weather the postgame Coliseum traffic, at least I won't be eating alone.

Unfortunately, once again, I won't be eating at Green Garden, that all-you-can't-eat Chinese buffet on Hegenberger Road – all-you-can't-eat because it's apparently never open. Cafe Salsa, the subject of last week's tearjerker, was closed too. Our only other choice, besides going and getting in traffic all over again, only facing the other way, was this goofy-looking place called Carrows, looks kind of like a Denny's, but it isn't. It's Carrows.

Carrows is a West Coast chain started in Santa Barbara and supposedly influenced by the supposedly natural beauty of Santa Barbara as well as its supposedly distinctive cuisine. Well, I've been to Santa Barbara, and so has Crawdad, but we decided to eat at Carrows anyway because, as I said, it isn't Denny's (and it was open, and there, and we had to kill some dinnertime time for traffic to clear, and there was a sign outside that said "Prime Rib $8.99," and it wasn't Denny's).

Get this: there was a 15-minute wait to be seated, empty booths all over the place. They were having a postgame rush, and neither the kitchen nor the wait staff could keep up, even if the size of the place could. Crawdad asked if there were any other eating establishments in the vicinity and the woman said, "Yeah. Denny's."

We decided to wait.

So you can add this to my long list of humiliations: I, Lord Exister, waited in line to eat at an evil chain restaurant with Jerry Rice and Jerry Rice and Jerry Rice and Jerry Rice, couple o' Tim Browns, and I think even Terrell Owens made a cameo appearance but didn't stay.

There were rows of Raiders pennants hanging on the wall over the counter. You would think a place this close to a sports stadium would be used to postgame rushes and staffed to deal with them – but, then, you would think a lot of things, wouldn't you?

And anyway, Crawdad and I hadn't seen each other in a week, so we had a lot to talk about.

"I'm thinking about getting the prime rib," I said.

"I can't decide between the club sandwich and a hamburger," she said.

"Look!" I said. "They have a fried chicken salad!"

"Maybe I'll get a hamburger," she said. "Where you going?"

I was going to walk around the place and see what everyone else was eating. "Bathroom," I said.

When our turn finally came, they sat us in the corner right next to the bathrooms, and it kind of sort of smelled like bathrooms, so we asked if we couldn't maybe wait a little longer for somewhere else to sit. "She just got off a plane. We haven't seen each other in a week," I explained.

Meanwhile, traffic cleared.

We were seated, eventually, in a booth that didn't smell like bathrooms, and even though we'd been studying the menu for half an hour, we still couldn't decide what to get. You know how it is when you're hungry, how everything on the menu looks really, really good? Well, this wasn't like that. Some things sounded good, like fried chicken salad, but they also had pictures of everything, and it all looked like Denny's. I guess that's the way they eat down in Santa Barbara. They eat at Denny's.

I ordered off of the specials board, which didn't have pictures. I ordered "backyard" chicken. Crawdad got a burger.

Waitressperson walked away, and I was immediately filled with a sense of dread. Backyard chicken? At a chain? That's like ordering "farm fresh" eggs at a chain. I have backyard chickens. I've eaten backyard chicken. If anyone in the world should know better than to be suckered by a lie like "backyard" chicken (or "farm fresh" eggs) at a Carrows chain restaurant near the Oakland airport ...

"What's wrong?" Crawdad said.

I shook my head. Across the way a young woman in a booth had just been served a slab of red meat and french fries, and she was wiping it all off with her napkin.

What an idiot, I was thinking (meaning me) when one of those wondrous things that sometimes happens happened: the waitressperson came back, saying, "Sorry, sir. We're all out of the backyard chicken."

So you see, my luck had turned after all. I smiled and gestured toward the woman in the booth across the way. "I'll have what she's having," I said.

"Prime rib? How would you like that?"

"Rare," I said. "No napkins."