Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Many Thanks To The Mouse!

By the title of this blog entry, friends and former colleagues must think I am referring, of course, to my old pal, Mickey Mouse... However, my hand-drawn friend is not the rodent I offer plaudits to this morning.

No, the mouse I am indebted to was about 3 inches long and brown, and I saw it for only a second or two. Robin and I were just finishing our dinners at a fine barbecue restaurant in our area last night when I spied a little critter scattering across the floor about 20 feet away from me. Thankfully, I had finished eating, and thankfully, we had enjoyed our food - otherwise the sighting might have been a bit more disturbing.


Since it was late - about 10 pm - there were just a couple of other patrons in the restaurant, and I didn't want to make a scene. At Robin's encouragement, I asked our waiter to get me the manager. When the manager arrived, I motioned for her to sit down, then in a soft voice, told her she had a pest problem.

The young woman was horrified. She apologized profusely, and explained that the exterminators had just been in the restaurant a few days earlier. She then grabbed the check folder off of the table, took the cash inside of it and handed it back to me. I explained that we had enjoyed our meal and were not looking for a freebie, but she refused to accept our money.

Sweet! I saved 46 dollars! And the food was delicious! Thanks, Mouse!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

For God's sake, what was the restaurant??? Inquiring minds who eat out in Montgomery County need to know!

John Matthews said...

You will be happy to know that this restaurant was not in Montgomery County. I have decided not to specify the name of the restaurant here for two reasons...

First - the manager of the restaurant was apologetic and acted quickly to satisfy us.

Second - Mice are a fact of life - especially in places that serve food. (We're not talking rats here, either - that's a whole other level of gross-ness) I doubt there's a restaurant out there that hasn't had them from time to time, and I don't think it's fair to single out a place that otherwise served a decent meal and did not outwardly appear to be unsanitary.

If you'd like the name, however... send me a private email and I'll fill you in.