Little Bulimics: True Tales of Childhood
My family did not go out to eat very often while I was growing up. My mom was an exceptional cook and there was little need to do so. Nonetheless, we did venture out every so often. This was a huge deal to my brother and I. When given a choice of any restaurant in our hometown, we usually begged and pleaded for McDonald’s. For reasons I now understand, this was usually rejected by my parents. Our number two choice usually involved a “buffet” style of restaurant, and for reasons I still do not understand, my parents usually buckled to this request.
Now, you must understand a few things before I continue the story. My father was a Dentist. This resulted in a lack of sugary substances in our household and my current irrational obsession with having a mini-fridge in my basement constantly stocked with Tab cola (which is very hard to find, and when I do find it I am exalted with delight). I overdosed early and often on “popcorn” and ” apples” which were the green-lit snacks in our house, and cannot eat either item to this day.
On with the story. So, we would eagerly choose our destination, and that usually ended up being a restaurant named Bonanza which was owned by the father of a classmate of mine (how I envied her). Bonanza was chosen for its cornucopia of delicious delights strewn about the buffet table. My brother and I would almost convulse with glee when we made our first pass at the table.
Macaroni and cheese, meatballs, pizza, and chicken fingers sharing proximately on the same plate? Stupendous. Fried cheese, green bean casserole and lasagna added to the heaping caloric time-bomb? Orgasmic. Then the desserts… oh the desserts *wiping tear from eye* well, they were legendary. After stuffing ourselves with deep-fried delicacies, we would hit the soft-serve ice cream station, and the cheesecake, and the cinnamon rolls, and the cake, the jello and the pudding. We would proceed to gorge ourselves as though preparing for a long winter hibernation, only that was not the case.
If we were lucky, we made it to the parking lot after the check was payed. Sometimes we were not so fortunate. One thing was always certain, our gluttony resulted in puking or gastric-intestinal rumblings of cosmic proportions until we were able to otherwise expel the offensive food matter.
This understandably pissed off my parents, and caused a the whole cycle to replicate itself. Here’s a documentation of the unfortunate events:
1. Take children out to dinner
2. Gluttonous children puke after eating
3. Vow not to take children out again
4. Months later, parents decide it is okay to attempt restaurant visit again.
(Repeat process).
Ah I remember those days. Too funny!
i hope that this story gets expanded into a sedaris-esque sharp, yet poignant memoir filled with vommitting children, and other true tales of childhood; be that traumatic or merely the tall tales of an adult’s memory of wearing smaller shoe-sizes.
regardless, how ’bout a round of applause for this anecodate?
[clapping over here]
bjh
Got a favorite cashew chicken buffet? I used to like the Silk Road on Battlefield.
You know, I really never did the Chinese buffet. I always went to small place by Cat and the Fiddle. Was it Hong Kong Inn? Anyway my buffets were always of the cafeteria/american food variety. Besides Bonanza I thoroughly enjoyed The Heritage Cafe buffet in the Battlefield Mall. Classy dame, I was.
My favorite part of Bonanza was the metal plates!
Those were pretty sweet.
Hong Kong Inn is still nearby but now a block west of Glenstone on Sunshine over near Key Largo. We had a pre-reunion lunch there with some folks from our class last July. I think their cashew chicken special has only gone up in price by 50 cents in the past 20 years.
it’s deSSerts. not deserts.
Indeed it is, I’m obviously still a bit rusty.
Yes please!! More David Sedaris-esque tales per Blake. Clapping here, too.