Scene From an Italian Restaurant

So for our anniversary, my wife Andrea wanted us to go to this quaint little Italian bistro. You may have heard of it. In Italiano, it is called Il Giardino Degli Ulivi.


OK, it’s Olive Garden. 


Hey, Andrea likes it and besides, for my anniversary gift, she gave me a gift card…. to Olive Garden.





Now you might think I should be bugged by that. She gave ME a card to take HER out to dinner?


Actually, it’s the best gift she could’ve gotten me. I was going to take her to Olive Garden anyway and she saved me $25.00. Quite frankly, I was happy with my gift.





When our city used to only have one Olive Garden, it was more of an event to go there. You didn’t dress up but you dressed nice. A couple of years back, a 2nd location opened and it is less of an event. Everybody who goes to this location looks like they just got finished shopping at Wal-Mart. 


When Andrea and I first arrived, we worried we might have a long wait; the parking lot was packed. But we found a space and when we went inside, our wait was less than 5 minutes. And we got a good table, in a corner, right by an emergency exit.  It was enchanting.  Except it was not.





THE RESTAURANT WAS THIS FEAKING LOUD!!!!!!!


I’ve complained in this blog before about how restaurants pipe in music that drowns out any attempt to have a normal conversation. But that was not the case this time. This time it was from the patrons.





Near our enchanted corner table by the emergency exit was a long table filled with an army of post Wal-Mart shoppers. And they were HAPPY to be there! 


I kid you not, there were frequent exclamations of “YEE-HA!” 





I sat there at our enchanted corner table, eyeing the  emergency exit and imagining a me shaped hole in the door. 


Andrea was scanning the menu and she seemed distressed as spoke to me, “Wah wah wah wah wah.” 





Which is all I could hear over the “YEE-HA!”  


Eventually the gang at the long table recovered enough from the excitement of dining on food that didn’t involve road kill and the thrill of owning new wrestling t-shirts from Wal-Mart so I could hear Andrea.




She couldn’t find the pumpkin cheesecake.


In previous years  when we went out for dinner at Olive Garden to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we would indulge in pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.





Yes, we are creatures of habit. Every year, we go to the Olive Garden, Andrea orders a glass of the house zinfandel along with fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken while I order a glass of the house red wine with the freaking Tour of freaking Italy because I want to LIVE, damn it! And for dessert, we have pumpkin cheesecake. Then we go home, tumbling with a mad passion into bed where we groan ourselves to sleep because we’re slightly drunk and we ate too damn much. Every damn year we do this! This, my friends, is the solid foundation of our 24 year marriage. 


But this year….





Andrea couldn’t find the pumpkin cheesecake.  


Now it was her turn to stress.  Every year, we go to the Olive Garden, she orders a glass of the house zinfandel along with fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken while she watches me peruse the wine list like I know what the fuck I’m doing only to order a glass of the house red wine with the freaking Tour of freaking Italy and where is the damn pumpkin cheesecake?!?!?!? 

Well, we found the pumpkin cheesecake except Il Giardino Degli Ulivi… excuse me, Olive Garden has stuffed it with chocolate and covered it with chocolate. Our pumpkin cheesecake was now chocolate pumpkin cheesecake.


I took a deep breath and calmly assured Andrea we would be fine. “We will need to… adjust,” I said, once more eyeing the emergency exit door.








Our waitress was named Olyvia. Seriously. Not making that up.  And Olyvia was so kind and attentive, it really went a long way to easing my stress from the “YEE-HA!” gang who had finally left. As we were reaching a stopping point in our meal (fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken and the freaking Tour of freaking Italy), she asked, as waitresses do, if we saved room for dessert.


“Well, funny you should mention that,” I said. We had in fact saved room for dessert, saving half of our respective pasta dishes to take home with us. “When we come here for our anniversary, my wife’s favorite dessert is the pumpkin cheesecake.”





“Oh! It’s your anniversary! Congratulations,” Olyvia replied.


“Thank you. But I noticed the pumpkin cheesecake is different.”





“Yeah, they added chocolate. We told the managers that would just make people mad but I’ve tried it and it is actually quite good. I tell you what. If you want to try it and since it’s your anniversary, it’s on the house!”


Andrea and I were both astonished. Well, sure, we could do that.  So Olyvia went off to take care of that but she returned a few minutes later. She noted that the chocolate pumpkin cheesecake was frozen and would not be ready to eat for a long time. So she offered another selection for dessert (still for free!) that we could have now and we could take the chocolate pumpkin cheesecake home with us (ALSO still for free!!)


YEE-HA! 


So Andrea and I picked out a couple of docinis which are these small desserts in a glass. Then Olyvia brought those out on a plate and…. Oh my God, look at that! 

“Happy Anniversary” spelled out in chocolate syrup?!?!?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Then we got the bill and true to her word, no desserts on it. But also missing were our glasses of wine. We never discussed any special dispensation regarding the wine and I felt Olyvia was too kind and attentive to stick her with not paying for our wine.  Now you might be thinking, “sucker, there was a chance for a smaller bill”. Maybe so but that never really entered the equation as far as I was concerned. And Olyvia was grateful that I noticed the oversight.  So she made Andrea and I feel good at the end of a meal after we had started out feeling a bit stressed. I was so grateful for her turning that around, I tipped her 25% instead of 20%. Which is kind of impressive because I can be quite the frugal bastard.  



I suppose we’ll be back to Il Giardino Degli Ulivi this time next year. Maybe if I’m smart, I ‘ll remember to bring ear plugs in case the “YEE-HA!” gang is there. 



By the way, when we later had the chocolate pumpkin cheesecake at home, it was dee-lish!