How on earth the manager expects us to just tolerate dogs racing around the restaurant all evening is beyond me. Absolutely disgraceful. Honestly. Pure chaos. Grandma just flew in tonight from OKC to the Harlingen International Airport. We wanted to treat her to a nice, quiet meal. I, for one, haven’t seen her in years and she was already confused in the minivan about the cat. It’s missing. We don’t know where it is. Prior to this, we didn’t know it existed at all. She’s gaunt and thin. From the chemo and radiation. And truly, her experience, watching all those dogs race in-between the tables and under the chairs is just disrespectful to say the least. One could have knocked her over in her wheelchair for God’s sake! None of us saw them. Mom, dad, my brother or me. But if grandma says she saw them, then I trust they must have been there. The doctors say she’s terminal and that her mind might start going little by little. So the audacity to traumatize her in this fragile state; first, with the airline losing her imaginary cat, and now, all these dogs barking and carrying on IN AN APPLEBEE’S OF ALL PLACES is just too much. It’s too much. She’s been given six months (at best). Tonight she’s moving-in with us down here to spend that precious time under our care. As her grandsons, daughter and son-in-law, we take that responsibility very seriously since grandpa ran off with another woman three or four years ago. We’re all she’s got. So this whole experience really stings. When we brought the subject of the dogs up to the waitress, she looked at us like WE were the crazy ones. DOGS — running around an APPLEBEE’S. And we’re the crazy ones… Didn’t get our meals comped or anything. Believe you me, we will NEVER be returning to this establishment EVER AGAIN. The food was good though. I got the quesadilla burger with fries. Mom had chicken-fried chicken with the white gravy.
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Ron Arbuckle lives in Oklahoma. His writing is published or forthcoming in Expat Press, Blood+Honey, Trash Cat Lit, Citywide Lunch, Michigan City Review of Books, APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, BULL, Hidden Peak Press, Plague Circus Press, Some Words & The Gorko Gazette.