Is this ranch?

In 1991, my eldest cousin got married in a very posh joint in Pasadena. There are several things about that trip that stand out to me in great detail.

One of them is that his sister, my favorite cousin, sent back her Gazpacho at the beginning dinner because it was cold. The waiter tried explaining that it was meant to be but she wouldn’t hear it. My dad teased her about that for years….

The second is a story so strange no believes it is true. Since we were there for a few days, my family made a real trip out of it. My sisters’ and I went to Hollywood to see Grauman’s and other attractions we had not since we were kids.

On this particular night, we met up at a restaurant with some assorted ‘extended family’, you know those people who you are not really related to, yet feel as though you are. So there we were in Denny’s-type establishment for dinner.

We ordered, and it was a decent sized table, somewhere between eight and ten of us. My dad ordered a side salad with ranch. Upon tasting it, he flagged down our waitress (and don’t email on this. She was not a server. Trust me.) to ask her if he had indeed gotten what he ordered.

Without missing a beat, she leaned over the table, plucked a bit of lettuce with dressing off my dad’s plate, popped it in her mouth and then said “Yep, that’s ranch.”

This, of course, left us all slack jawed and staring at each other. What the hell had just happened? My dad very calmly called over the manager and explained what happened. She was so embarrassed she took care of the entire tab.

The next night, my sister and I went back, just for kicks. Since both she and my mom have been waitress, it was a pretty crazy outing for us. When she told the se3rve what had happened the before, she comped our food too.

Let this be a lesson to you: be careful who you ask what. You may not like the way they answer!