31 October 2013

On Being Simple 'n Fit

I went to a corn maze last weekend that is shaped like Si Robertson's face. There's obviously no way of distinguishing that when you're in the maze, but oh, you know. You know you are traversing the curls and swirls of that gnarly beard and rounding the arc of those orbicular frames. It's bliss.


And of course the best thing after a corn maze has got to be IHOP, so we found one of those. My mom teases me to this day for having a "history" with IHOP waitstaff, and this visit was no exception. First of all, why does IHOP have to initiate all of their healthier options with the words "Simple 'n Fit"? Maybe I want to be a conscious eater without particularly announcing it to the rest of my party, IHOP. Maybe I'm uncomfortable with the unintentional pretension of announcing how simple and fit I am to a table of Cinn-a-Stacks, IHOP. Strugs. When it came time for me to order, the waitress was of course on the extreme opposite corner of the table because she remembered from geometry class that standing diagonally from me would create the largest distance across which for me to yell "I'd like the Simple 'n Fit..." And here's another thing, IHOP - when you start all of your Simple 'n Fit options with the words Simple 'n Fit, your waitstaff has difficulty distinguishing what is actually being ordered. This was evidenced by several loud repeats of my Simple 'n Fit order. But the confusion didn't end there. A while after the order was put in, the waitress came back to me and asked if I didn't want to add hashbrowns or bacon or sausage or anything to my order. Confused and a little flustered by this preferred treatment, I just said no. "Are you sure? It'd be better that way."

What does this woman think I ordered.

I go through the whole Simple 'n Fit thing again, trying to clarify (without a menu) which Simple 'n Fit blueberry pancake option I ordered out of the billions of almost identical Simple 'n Fit blueberry pancake options. At this point my "Simple 'n Fit" tally is probably well into the double digits. Obviously, it did not compute because what I received was not what I ordered. I called the waitress over and explained that I had been given too much food and that I had ordered the Simple 'n Fit pancakes with blueberries (implicit "inside the pancakes") and bananas on top. She acted like she understood, took away the plate, and came back a few minutes later with the same plate of pancakes with blueberries and bananas on top. Yep, looks good!



*I am not a demanding customer at all because that entails confrontation. I'm sure this was all done with the fiercest of blushes and plenty of "umm..."s, "I think..."s, "maybe..."s, and "I'm not sure if..."s.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous31.10.13

    Well said.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous26.1.15

    I'm not sure I'll be able to eek my order out through the laughter, next time I'm at IHOP.

    ReplyDelete