SUNDAY BRUNCH

I used to love Sundays... a relaxing family time... take it easy, sleep in, relax, watch a nice movie, watch a good game, read a good book, eat junk food, scratch my balls all day long...

Not since Sunday Brunch with my folks...

Now, I spend most Sundays fighting or trying to keep other people I don't want to be with from fighting... and since the baby, the available restaurant choice are very few... baby needs a place that offers finger foods -- french fries, chicken nuggets, refried beans, hot dogs -- and that is noisy and crowded... and if there should happen to be a balloon making clown, so much better... and to make matters worse, it has to be a place my folks are willing to eat at -- which is not easy... so, currently, the possible choices are down to 3... so we alternate restaurants every 3 Sundays...

Today, we went to one of those 3 usual places... but it was a bit crowder than usual... maybe due to the fact that today was a soccerless Sunday... so we couldn't get our usual long table. The table we got, seated us a bit closer together... which is a recipe for disaster... anyhoo.. appart from holding everything together in order not to have a Sunday Brunch Implosion... we were swarmmed with flies... our "regular" table is located under a rotating fan -- so we never have a fly issue... but today's crappy table, besides being smaller, was located about 350 miles from the nearest fan... and it happened to be a fly convention center...

Excuse me... could I get a fly swapper?

The waitress could not hide her expression of surprise and disgust... and walked away... but didn't return... so I decided to go above her head and talk directly to the woman in a red coat who was holding the walkie talkie...

Excuse me... we need a fly swapper...

The woman returned after a while with a swapper wrapped in a plastic bag... obviously, she didn't want other patrons to notice it... but how can you swap a fly under a plastic bag... one sway and the fly's gone... so I took it out to reveal not the cleanest and most sterilized swapper around... I had only killed one, when the food arrived... and I decided that it was beyond gross to keep on with the massacre...

Excuse me... do you happen to have a fan or maybe a citronella candle... or something?

The woman with the walkie talkie smiled... walked away... and never returned... never offered a solution... or anything...

Excuse me... I need to see the manager...

When the manager arrived, we had already spent most of the meal chasing flies away... yeah... we got free desserts... but somehow that only feels like a bittersweet victory...

As I walked out of the restaurant, tired and defeated, I swear I could hear a few of the flies laughing the asses off...