the story to end all stories

Most families have a story like this. The story that you tell at every get-together or low point in the conversation since it’s guaranteed to liven things up. Our story has now been told to so many people in our circle of friends most everyone knows what I’m talking about when I utter the fateful word . . . Wendy’s.

But for y’all that don’t know, here’s our family’s greatest tale . . .

This was way back in the day, like Elementary School days, and Cathy and I were involved in many after-school activities like dance and piano. We tended to go out to dinner after these things and on this evening the four of us somehow ended up at Wendy’s.

This was also back when Wendy’s had this getup called the Superbar, a mini-smorgasbord that had an array of foods on it that was all-you-could-eat. As an aside, isn’t ‘smorgasbord’ a FANTASTIC word? I’ve never actually had the chance to use it before outside of quoting the Charlotte’s Web movie!

So, enter in my tired parents along with their two hyper girls who are oh-so-glad that piano/dance/school is done for the day and it’s time to eat. Cathy and I get Kids’ Meals to score the awesome toys but Dad is feeling adventurous so he goes for the Superbar.

Over the course of the dinner Dad went up to the bar multiple times to try out all the different foods, some at our behest. This was before the days of extreme germaphobia so the same plate went up every time. He had some spaghetti, some tacos, salad; I wanted to try some horrible concoction of strawberries and banana (ick!) so by the end of dinner that plate had a little bit of everything on it.

Near the end of dinner we were all slowing down, digesting, and discussing our day. Cathy, as usual, had wandered off to the bathroom. Dad was fiddling with her toy from her Kid’s Meal. One of the pieces fell on the floor and he bent down to get it.

The following sequence of events happened in slow motion for Mom and I.

In bending down to get the toy, Dad’s elbow hit the edge of his Superbar plate encrusted with foods from around the world, sending it flipping high into the air, up, up, up . . .

. . . then down, down, down, landing precisely on Dad’s head.

As the food oozed down his eyes and over his ears, the entire restaurant, which was full of patrons, became deathly quiet. All eyes were on our table, looking at this woman, child, and well-dressed man with a button-down shirt and tie sitting there with a mix of spaghetti, tacos, and strawberry gook all over his face. Mom always suspected other people thought she dumped the plate on him.

After a few seconds, a single sound began to emerge in the restaurant. A giggle quickly rising to a chuckle that immediately escalated to an all-out guffaw. It was me, falling to the floor, laughing so hard in a room of completely stunned people. I could barely breathe.

Perhaps my sputtering helped to break the ice. People around the restaurant slowly went back to their own meals over covert looks. Mom reached over and pulled a spaghetti noodle off of Dad’s ear. I finally came to my senses and realized Cathy was still in the bathroom and had missed the whole thing — I ran to get her. I peeped under the stall and said, “You have GOT TO COME SEE DAD!”

By that time Mom was helping him clean up enough so he could at least open his eyes. He cleaned up as best we could and slunk out of that Wendy’s. Mom had to throw away Dad’s shirt — the strawberry stuff just would not come out.

We didn’t eat there again for YEARS.