Who Eats Breakfast for Dinner?

So Eric and I are going on another road trip on our way to the NCBA convention. We’ve notified our neighbors and turned on the alarm system. We both enjoy traveling and even though we’re in the ‘basket buggy’ about 18 hours, it never feels like it. Probably because we see so many amusing things en route (or we create something funny if it’s a boring trip).

This is a little story of something that happened to us on the last road trip. I didn’t write a post about it at the time but every now and then we say to each other “Who eats breakfast for dinner?” So I thought I would share the story now on the eve of our next trip.

Our good friends from Atlanta mentioned to us that when they travel, they enjoy going to Cracker Barrel. I have never been and most likely due to the fact that we don’t like to spend too much time in a restaurant. We want to pull over, gas up, stuff our faces and get back on the road as quickly as possible. We’re definitely “destination-oriented” people.

So we pulled over for the night and right next to our hotel was a Cracker Barrel. I said to Eric “we have to go there for dinner.” Eric (I’ve heard the story several times and I’ll spare you the details) had a bad experience at a Cracker Barrel years ago but since friends recommended it, he decided we should give it another try. The restaurant was literally half empty, and they sat us at a table three feet from another couple (not exaggerating, it was definitely three feet).

After looking over the dinner menu we both had a difficult time finding something that didn’t involve that white ‘southern’ gravy stuff or those mushy grits. Then Eric says, “hey, they gave me the breakfast menu too.” Sure enough, it said breakfast was served all day. Yah!

So, we both ordered breakfast and while we waited for his eggs and bacon and my pancakes, Eric leans in, “that woman keeps staring at us.” I knew exactly what he was talking about because I noticed her as well. She was the other half of the couple sitting three feet away and her body was angled towards us. In addition, she spoke extremely loud. But her companion hardly spoke a word. We heard her thoughts on the traffic, the weather, and Aunt Sally along with other unmemorable topics (and from her companion’s non-responsive existence, I’m thinking he felt the same way.)

After four refills on my root beer, our ‘breakfasts’ arrived. And I’m happy to see that our server set two miniature ‘Cracker Barrel’ bottles of pure maple syrup right in front of me. One, I love mini anything (mini pails, mini boxes, mini post-it-notes, mini bottles…) and two, I looooove pure maple syrup. As we’re taking our first bites, we both hear, in a similar voice to George’s obnoxious and melodramatic mother, Estelle from Seinfeld “Who would eat breakfast for dinner! I can see maybe eating breakfast at lunch time or maybe up to 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon but at 7 o’clock at night? Why would anyone eat breakfast this late at night?” No response from her companion. And then she continues “Who would want to eat breakfast for dinner!”

We decided to just ignore her as best we could, and talk about our day and the upcoming convention. I was especially proud of Eric for keeping his cool and not confronting her. Because I could see he wanted to in his eye rolls and facial expressions. After we were done, I decided that since I only used one of the bottles of syrup, I would take the other one home with me. And as we’re getting up to leave, we hear “Can you believe she put that bottle of syrup in her purse?”

comments