Jennifer left for Chiapas last Saturday for a week to start her Ph.D. research. I wish I could say that I’m perfectly fine with her traveling to a place she’s never visited before, by herself, and with no direct way of contacting her. Well, I am okay with it, but I didn’t sleep all that well last night, or the night before. I know she will be okay, that the trip is safe, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a little stressful. And when I think about her leaving for three months in the fall - oy vey. But such is life. Honestly, I’m more worried about her traveling than just being there, so I was relieved when she called last night from Palenque.
A funny story. With her needing to be at the airport at 11pm (her flight was at 2am), we arrived at the airport at 8pm and decided to go to dinner. This was pretty much the plan - to get there in plenty of time to relax and not stress about rushing to the airport. We drove around for a few minutes looking for a place to eat, and there wasn’t much that caught our eye. Jennifer is a vegan, I was feeling like having a relaxing dinner, so the pickings seemed pretty slim around LAX. We decided on the Sizzler’s All-You-Can-Eat Salad Bar.
It had been a long time since I had dined at a Sizzler, but I remember it being fairly decent. In fact, I have some slight nostalgia for Sizzler. We used to eat there with my grandmother when I was a kid. The last time I ate at a Sizzler they were running those “I don’t have a lot of time, I don’t want to spend a lot of money” commercials on television. Granted, my expectations for this meal were low. It’s a Sizzler. It’s by an airport. Don’t expect too much.
Well, my expectations were still a little too high. The salad bar was “funky”, and not in a groovy James Brown way. Everything had a slightly odd taste. I like tangy salad dressing, but ranch dressing shouldn’t be that tangy. The taco bar was just wrong, like in a “I don’t have a lot of time, I really want diarrhea” kind of way. Meat should never, ever, EVER EVER EVER, look like that.
This isn’t even an issue of “you get what you pay for”, as I guess the whole “I don’t have a lot of money” campaign went out the window. The meal came to about $24.00. So really the Sizzler slogan has changed to “I don’t have a lot of time, I really want crappy, over-priced food”. The one piece of advertising I would agree with is the “all you can eat” part. It really was “all we could eat”, although I expected that to mean something entirely different.
Unfortunately, we capped off the evening by leaving Jennifer’s cellphone on our table. Of course, when we went back they couldn’t find it. Nope, nowhere to be found, can’t find it anywhere, it definitely wasn’t here. I’ll give you $20 if you find it - oh, HERE IT IS! Apparently, it was in the trash, which is just perplexing. To the busboy’s credit, he did clean it off (don’t ask what was on it) and refused to take the money - even after we persisted. So who knows…
So that’s Jennifer’s departure story. I just hope the most dangerous part of her trip was at the Sizzler.
