Last night, I had the distinct pleasure of hanging out with Mark and Jeff, my two best friends from high school. (How the hell can I be 46 years old and still be making such a statement? Well, whatever works, and all that...) The company was awesome, the food left a lot to be desired, the cigars almost brought me to my knees, and the heat in the man-cave was almost too intense.
Jeff lives locally, about 10 miles from me, while Mark lives in another state (we forgive him), and was in town to spend the holidays with family. So, we decided to meet at Jeff's house and go from there. I should point out that Jeff's house is undergoing EXTREME renovation, to the point where it is currently not inhabitable, and won't be for some time. Anyway, Jeff gives us a tour of the renovation process, and tells us what each room will be. At this point, I'm thinking that Jeff is a man of great vision; it just looks like a bunch of 2-by-4's to me.
After that, we decided to venture down to Detroit's famed Mexicantown area for dinner. (No, that's not an ethnic slur, the area is actually promoted that way, with signs that say so.) The restaurant we wanted to eat at had a 40-minute wait, so we chose another. I can't remember the name of it, which is probably for the best, in order to avoid lawsuits and such.
Geographical note: Detroit is just across the river from Windsor, Ontario (Canada, for you half-brainers out there).
One of the first thing we noticed was a sign in the restaurant at the cashier's station that said "Canadian credit cards not accepted on Monday night". I thought that that was extremely bizarre. Why should Monday night be different? Trying to keep Canadians out on Monday night? Connected somehow to Monday Night Football? It was Jeff who pointed out a sign on another wall that said "Canadian money on par Monday night". Normally, their rate of exchange is $1.25 Canadian = $1 U.S. (I have no idea how this compares to the "official" rate of exchange, and I'm too damn lazy to go look it up). So, it was just the opposite of my initial theory: they were trying to attract MORE Canadians on Monday nights. It's just that when you use a credit card, you automatically get the official exchange rate, and they couldn't change that, which would probably be too difficult to try to explain to your average half-drunk nitwit patron, so much easier to just not accept Canadian credit cards for that one night. So, all you Canadians, if you decide to eat at _____________________ in Detroit on Monday night, bring cash. (See? I like to be helpful.)
The chips were freshly baked, and the salsa seemed freshly made, as well. That was the best part of the meal. Jeff ordered a martini on the rocks (he distinctly said "on the rocks" twice), yet it came with no rocks. Mark and I ordered non-aloholic beverages, only to find out later that they only came with one refill. Gee, maybe the name of the restaurant was El Cheapo.
The appetizer was a botana. Well, I'd never had one before, and now I know why. They come topped with peppers, onions, and stuff like that which I don't care for. Well, there were chips and ground beef at the bottom of this massive pile o' food, so there was some saving grace.
We all ordered wet burritos as our main course (and I'll spare you the jokes we made about that). To be kind, I'd say that that burrito did not rank on the Top Ten Burritos list, so don't bother e-mailing Letterman. It had onions inside of it, which to me seems like something you should have to specially ask for. Oh, but it gets worse: it had carrots in it. CARROTS!?!? In a freakin' BURRITO? For the rest of the night, we joked about the "Norwegian burritos".
Only one of us took food home (it wasn't me), although none of us could finish the meal. This unnamed person also dumped some of the chips into his take-home box. This only seems funny when you consider that we had just heard the waiter tell patrons at another table that they couldn't take home chips because they were complimentary. (Huh?) So, was a crime committed? You be the judge. As far as I'm concerned, that's just payback for serving us those damn carrot burritos.
So, we left, and after I inadvertently instructed Mark to drive over a curb (which I didn't know was there, so with the information at hand, it seemed like great advice when it left my mouth), and which thankfully did not appear to inflict great bodily harm upon his vehicle, we made it back to Jeff's renovation-in-process house.
We went down into the basement, which currently has a ceiling that's about fifteen feet high. Jeff had been drying some boards he had been painting down there, so he had an industrial strength heater going. It runs on kerosene, but has an electric fan, and the heat is extremely focused in whatever direction the heater is pointed. So we sat down in the "man-cave" (and it really felt like a cave, due to the current state of the floor, which is dirt) on muddy plastic chairs, smoking good cigars, drinking fine bourbon (OK, I passed on the bourbon, having to be at work the next morning), and talking about religion and politics. Kinda felt like the poor man's version of the end of every episode of Boston Legal.
Let me tell ya, now I know why I'm not cut out to be a smoker. By the end of that stogie, I thought I'd be redecorating the walls with carrot burrito. I didn't actually get sick, but I'm sure I was dangerously close to that point.
Ironically, I had brought up that President Ford would probably be the next president to pass away, due to his declining health in recent years. Thinking back to the timing, at the time I mentioned it, he had probably died within the previous hour. A bizarre coincidence, to say the least.
Anyway, all things considered, it was a great evening, in spite of funky burritos, near-woofing, close calls with vehicular damage, and somebody's unauthorized redeployment of chips. One of those evenings that doesn't come along very often, so you just have to savor it while you have the chance.
Like a good cigar.
