On occasion I take my kids on breakfast dates. The time over a meal we share is priceless. It’s a mommy and me session with a teenager, one on one time without arguing kids. It’s lovely.
Plus there is coffee. I need that in my life.
Today it was my son’s turn. He was able to pick the place, had to be local but still anyplace he wanted. I do the same for my daughter and she usually picks someplace with real menus. Nice places with fancy pancake options and flavored coffee with frothy tops. The places with real napkins and actual eating utensils. With servers and a laid back, take your time, savor your freshly squeezed orange juice, atmosphere.
Not my boy though.
No. Not this time. He wanted a breakfast burrito stuffed with every animal available on the morning menu topped with eggs and cheese. He a added a side of deep fried potato and a fountain soda to make it “perfection” … sure kid.
A plastic, paper lined basket filled with food sure to clog his arteries some day. I’m not complaining. Not even a little. For under $20 I had a date with my youngest child. The one most like me most days, sarcastic and inquisitive. He makes me laugh and he also makes me want to sell him on the black market. Sometimes both in the same day.
We sat in the way back chowing down in mostly content silence. Occasionally giving each other dirty looks when all of a sudden from the back kitchen we hear someone yelling.
It was mostly words we couldn’t make out in frantic voices.
“Fire!” We heard that one loud and clear.
We looked at each other, mouths full of burrito and wondered if it meant what we thought it meant. There was more yelling before he swallowed his bite and wondered out loud if we should take our breakfast to go.
I gazed out the window at the miserable rain and chilly air and sighed deeply. Weighing my options there was but a single choice.
I decided it was probably just a small manageable issue.
Kitchens have fires all the time. There was no alarm going off so I thought it was probably fine to continue to sip my soda calmly.
It was then a member of the staff ran from the kitchen to grab an extinguisher from the counter under the register. I mention this to the boy in comical amazement. He seems to be much more aware of danger than I. He turns to me and asks if it was “probably protocol to evacuate customers when there was a fire” which really is a good question.
We pondered this for a good 3 minutes before a frazzled woman in a restaurant uniform wearing a crooked headset booked it out the front door. She didn’t make eye contact and didn’t stop to say a word to patrons eating in the dining room.
We declared it clearly wasn’t a thing. There would be no evacuation. Whatever had happened in that back kitchen stayed there. Like Vegas but with eggs and bacon. We can only wonder what poor sap was served a charcoal biscuit.
What exactly the employee did with that extinquisher and why exactly there was no concern to leave the building is still a mystery.
All I know is it may be a little while before I feel the need to conquer a burrito for breakfast. Our next date most surely will be in an establishment with forks.
We might ask about the protocol in the event of a fire too. You know, just in case.
My Idiotic Bliss 