Cafeteria

For lunch, I went to a K&S Cafeteria. I haven’t been to a cafeteria restaurant in years.

When I walked in the door of this restaurant, I was shocked at the poor upkeep. The first thing I noticed when I entered was the peeling wallpaper — everywhere, the dark blue wallpaper was curling up. Oh geez, I thought, what’s the sanitation grade of this place? I found the grade: A. OK, so they don’t grade on decor.

The second thing I noticed, as I walked through the maze for herding folks through the serving line, was the age of all the other customers. Of the more than 20 people in the line, I was definitely the youngest patron. I had forgotten that aspect/demographic of cafeteria dining.

Once up at the serving line, the food looked really good –- it was all very well presented. I checked out the menu board to see what the prices were like, and I saw something I’d never heard of before: telia, teleria, or something like that (“t” something “ia”). I had no clue what that was, but it was listed in the same section as beef and chicken.

As I ordered my beef tips over rice, I heard a woman a couple of people behind me order the t—ia thing. I watched over my shoulder to see what the server went for, but just my luck, the server had to retrieve some plates. So I had to move on forward without seeing the t—ia thing.

I had my beef tips, rice, corn, a slice of Texas toast, a glass of sweet tea, and then I came to the dessert. Holy sweet baby! More slices of different kinds of pie than I could count. It took me a minute to choose — much to the annoyance of the older man in line right behind me.

I settled on a huge slice of cheese cake. The thing was about three inches thick! It was all I could do to make myself eat all my lunch before taking a fork-full of this pie. . . cake? (It’s obviously a pie, but why do they call it cake? Nevermind. This is going into a really dumb comedy routine that I’m sure Gallagher or someone covered 20 years ago.)

I couldn’t finish the pie/cake, but I put in a good try.

Hmm. You know, this story . . . really is boring. Did I mention everyone in the restaurant was at least 20 years older than me? Yeah, I did. Did I mention the . . . yeah, I did. Damn.

OK, look. I’ll write something better tomorrow. This sucks. Damn. I thought this story would be interesting, but, crap, it’s not even mildly entertaining.

It’s pie! But it’s called a cake! Meh. I just can’t save this. There’s nothing interesting or funny about eating lunch at a K&S Cafeteria. It’s just kind of sad for a 41-year-old geeky professional.

Bullgrit