Met Grill - the saga continues

On Friday, I met up with Heather and surprise lunch guest B Noel, for a return visit to the scene of the crime. Once I again I'll reiterate my thoughts on the Met Grill. The food is great. The question is whether or not they are willing to sell it to you. This is a continuing source of consternation and bewilderment. Anyway, we entered the place about 11:50am. You've got to there before noon if you want any chance of success. Success at this restaurant simply means "getting to eat the food."
Much to my delight it appears that Oaf-Boy is no longer employed there. A friend of mine (J.S.) claims he offered her some heroin a few weeks ago. Hard to believe. You'd think he would have had a prosperous career at this establishment. Anyway, B joins us and we all place our orders with the new waitress (young girl - somewhat pleasant). I ordered the salmon pasta with a side salad. B orders some hamburger nonsense and Heather got the chicken portabella sandwich with a side salad. We waited about 25 minutes and our food arrived. Not bad. My only complaint was that my side salad should have been served first rather than with the meal. Normally, one expects to receive the salad early since it was not a lunch combo, but rather, ordered a la carte. Anyway, I'm just thrilled they got the order correct. We're halfway through our meal and a local atty (J.S. - not the same J.S., the other one is a woman) shows up. He was meeting a client and sat down with us for a while. He was impressed with the level on my keychain. I use it to verify the playability of outside foosball tables. Incidentally, I stole it from Scott T a few years ago. I extracted it from his keychain and put it on mine. He seemed puzzled by my blatant theft but I told him it was for the greater good, whatever that means. He's like, "Saf, you can buy them over a True Value for 79 cents." I'm like, "No, I need this one."
Anyway, the food is decent and I insist on picking up the tab. I think the bill came to something like $26 for the 3 of us. I gave our waitress a $100. She comes back with a slightly exasperated look. "Excuse me, do you have anything smaller. We don't have change for a hundred." Me being a Wheeling bigshot, I respond, "Not really, it's all I've got." This was a true statement. I suppose I could have used a credit card, but to be blunt, there are so many quality control issues with this place, I thought that using my Mastercard would be an error in judgement. Anyway, she looks at me and says, "Well, I'll see what I can do." I thought to myself - maybe I should have offered to go around from table to table and ask if anyone has change. That would have been appropriate at this place because everything truly is a group effort. By the way, I also asked for 3 large to go boxes as I was going to get all the leftovers (salad, salmon/pasta, and half a sandwich with the remnants of some vegetable skewer thing). She manages to find the change for the hundred. They probably had to send someone to the bank. Isn't it odd that a restaurant wouldn't have change for a hundred dollar bill (on a Friday no less)?
She comes back with 4 mini stirofoam boxes. They are out of normal sized to-go boxes. It's cool though. I stack the boxes as if they were a ladder to heaven. Think of it, I'm the one building the ladder to heaven at the Met Grill. Can we achieve a greater level of ironic blasphemy?
Anyway we all say our goodbyes and head out the door. I get to the car and start looking for my keys. I must have left them on the table. Heather keeps a watchful eye on the to-go boxes and I head back inside. I'm looking all over the place. I ask the waitress - did you see my car keys? She says no as they haven't cleared the table yet. I'm a little confused. I ask the trio at the next table if their 3 yeard old might have snagged them. Nope. I'm like what the fuck - B Noel must have snagged them. I call him and he also repsonds in the negative. I'm a little flustered. The only other option is local atty., J.S. He must have snagged them but I don't know his number. Wait a minute, he was meeting a client for lunch there. I scan the restaurant and see them in the back. I go over and say, "Hey, what the hell? Did you take my keys?" He's a little surprised but starts fumbling in his jacket pocket, and lo and behold, pulls out my keys. I ask him, "How the hell do you just snag someone elses keys?" He offers up an apologetic glance and hands them over - "Sorry Saf, I don't know how I ended up with them."
Alright, no problem, I figured it all out. This is how he gets people off DUI's and it's consistent with overall Met Grill policy. When a client somes to the office of J.S. with a DUI, he takes their keys. This way he can look at the client and as a matter of absolute certainty calmly say, "You will never get another DUI." Well duhhhh - How am I supposed to drive without my keys? Kind of an innovative strategy for a young attorney.

sonofsoup

Well, I suffered my first defeat in the soup milieu. Everything started out fine. Stock, carrots, celery, onion, meatballs, zucchini (Jean Anne thought they were cucumber slices), and various secret seasonings. Then, I decided to get creative. I usually go with a potato base but decided to mix it up and infuse the concoction with an egg noodle ensemble. Absolute disaster. After 20 minutes the soup started to resemble some kind vomitous slime. Metaphorically speaking, it became a Sunni triangle quagmire. AJ had some kind words. "It's the best tasting gruel I've ever had. Mmmmm, just tell people it's chicken'n'dumplings."
Needless to say, I dumped it out this morning. Even the garbage disposal seemed a bit disturbed. To anyone who reads this crap, I make this pledge...
SONOFSOUP WILL RETURN