Year 3, Day 89: What's Wrong with America

Today it was raining as we knew it would so we planned to take Ruby to the movies, Shrek the Third, to be specific. The movie was sorrowfully second rate which is sad given the fact that Shrek 2 was infinitely better than the first. I suppose it has something to do with the law of diminishing returns. The girls enjoyed it, because there were a lot of jokes regarding lower GI functions. As has been my norm, I brought lots of snacks, as did the other family we went with. We had plenty of snacks which was good because as long-time readers know, movie-popcorn is a killer.

Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean!
Heritage Flakes
Strawberries
Blueberries
Banana
Unsweetened Soy Milk
Coffee

Snack
1 Cameo Apple with Peanut Butter

Movie Snack
2.5 oz Boston Lite Popcorn

Lunch TGI Fridays
Strawberry Fields Salad (no Strawberries)

Dinner
Hungarian Chicken
Salad with Feta & Cabbage & Balsamic

2-3 Chocolate Chip Cookies

We went to the movies with another family and their daughter, and we decided that after the movie (it got out at 1:00pm) we should go have lunch. We were in Framingham, which for people who don't live here, is a gigantic series of strip malls, shopping centers, big box stores and actual malls separated by busy superhighways, congested secondary roads and snarled, badly signed main streets. If there is a chain-store you seek, you will find it in Framingham. It feels like the test kitchen for ALL chain stores. Every restaurant that advertises on television hawks its sad wares from Applebee's to Ruby Tuesday's is here in the wide vista of parking lots and potholes. So it was sad but not surprising that my party ended up at TGIF (An acronym for Thank God it's Friday- I explain because KFC and iHOP also fell victim to the acronym-only problem). There, at nearly 1:30pm on Memorial Day in the shopping mecca of Massachusetts, we were greeted by no maitre'd, no table, and a confirming display that six out of ten people in the United States are overweight, with some of those people being morbidly obese.

Emily literally had to intervene to help us get a table and it was even time for the shift change. When we were finally seated, I tried my best to order what I thought would be the thing least likely to bring on Montezuma's Revenge. To avoid this at TGIF I thought I would avoid things that need require special handling (like food) and go with only the things that are most prominent- avoiding an issue with the little-handled eggs, for instance. I ordered the "Strawberry Fields" salad with a bile-filled smirk because who the hell are these folks to call it "Strawberry Fields?" As a Beatles fan, I found it offensive, yet I was so hungry I needed to get on with it. I decided to skip the strawberries because long-time readers know that I have a deep abiding love for strawberries and cannot see them in their probably once-frozen state on top of a bad chain-restaurant salad.

When the salad did come it featured not fresh "mixed" greens as promised on the menu but flat, near-dead iceberg lettuce, drenched, not 'tossed' in balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The chicken was the sorriest portion of protein I had ever laid eyes on, or touched without wearing lab gloves. No self-respecting airline would have served it. It had all the appeal of tofurky, with none of its flavor, or charm. I could barely eat anything on my plate, and as hungry as I was, I was additionally mournful at how different the actual dish looked from its delightful representation on the menu. In my dark moment, I was forced to realize how different this TGIF was from the Friday's of my youth-- an exciting new concept in restaurants in the heart of Newbury Street boston. The great looking, young crowd, great bar food, great drinks, and a place where the "funzy" atmosphere literally created its own good time.

Contrasting that with this dark, stinking, suburban excuse for a restaurant, run by heavy people who were laboring to do their jobs, and not seeming to have any fun at all. The food was absent food's charm, and probably most of its nutritional value as well. The kid's menu was a nice try, but both girls ordered spaghetti and would you believe it- they were out of both carrots AND mandarin orange slices, so the waitress offered to bring FRENCH FRIES as a SIDE DISH to their PASTA. And because at the moment, I could not remember how I got to be 55 lbs overweight, I had to ask "What's wrong with America?"