What do you get when you put two people in their young 20’s in a very fancy restaurant? Bad things. You get bad, bad things.
Last weekend, my boyfriend wanted to take me out to a nice restaurant. Since recently graduating six months ago, he got a "real person job" and is going through that post-grad “I’m a real person but I still don’t know how to do laundry/consider ramen noodles a main food group” phase. So somehow we ended up at the second-nicest restaurant in DC.
It took but a glance at the menu, or rather, the prices on the menu, to realize our fatal error. So, like the mature adults that we are, we had a secret conversation behind the menus to discuss our options. Our possible solutions included:
Plan 1. Get up to go to the bathroom and sneak out.
Plan 2. Fake an argument. Storm out angrily.
Plan 3. Fake an injury. Limp out dejectedly.
Plan 4. Be honest with the waiter and explain your mistake... this obviously didn’t happen.
Plan 5. Suck it up and figure it out.
Plan 5 seemed to be the one that involved the least amount of humiliation. So with empty wallets but our pride still intact, we dined onward. Here are the important lessons I learned from this experience:
Lesson 1: Do not loudly whisper “Should we go to Chipotle instead?” when the waiter is in hearing distance.
Lesson 2: If you can’t pronounce the name of the entree, it’s probably not for you.
Really, the “herb crusted chicken” was the catalyst to our downfall. Darn you, silent "h."
Lesson 3: Bring a back-up shirt in case you spill a $30 crouton on yourself.
Lesson 4: If you are still spilling on yourself, you probably shouldn’t be fine-dining.
Lesson 5: If there are British people in the restaurant, it’s probably too classy for you.
If your surrounding peers are international, chances are you're not cool enough. Get out while you can.
Lesson 6: Sit across from (not next to) your date.
There's a reason that my mom still puts me at the kids table at Thanksgiving.
Lesson 7: Bring flashlights.
Fancy restaurants = dark dining rooms. Theory: they dim the lights so you can’t see the fiscally-induced tears.
Lesson 8: Don’t ask the waiter for recommendations. Spoiler: It will be the most expensive thing on the menu.
Lesson 9: Look up the menu and prices before you go.
Lesson 10: And perhaps the most important lesson of all: you can never go wrong with Chipotle.
A burrito a day keeps the big bills away.
So, there we have it. The true story of two mere almost-adults implanted in a world of Gatsby's. Anyway, the $50 Caesar salad was really delicious.
