We Don't Go Out Much

 

                They looked like a happy couple when they entered the restaurant. A quiet passivity on both their faces as the hostess guided them to a table. The restaurant was crowded and noisy with endless chatter. A din swallowing up the piped in Mexican/Spanish themed music over the loudspeakers. It wasn’t a restaurant for a common conversation or to hash out the meaning of life together though intense whispering discussions. It was a noisy, mall, franchised, restaurant with crazy crap hanging on the walls.

                The couple was led past our table, toward theirs and they caught my eye. There was nothing extraordinary about them. They appeared to be on the young side of their 30’s, but had a certain doom hanging over them. A grey sort of cloud that instantly made me think, “divorce”.  I nodded to my wife, and gestured with my eyes to check out this couple that was seated two tables away from us. She understood my non-verbal cue and looked towards the couple.

A rhinoceros then burst into the restaurant’s front doors.  Crashing through the booths and tables. Bellowing and roaring, flinging restaurant patrons into the air, spilling pretty good table salsa onto the walls, mixing with the blood of the trampled. The rhinoceros kicked and bucked, swirling in angry circles, knocking down the hot cheese bar and spraying customers with scalding hot Chihuahua and Oaxaca.  The screams and shouting were enough to drown out the Mexican/Spanish music being piped in. Which was okay because I could have sworn they were just playing the same song on repeat.

My wife and I dropped our burritos and dove under the table, hoping to escape the raging Rhinoceros’ painful wallops and clear hatred of this particular Mexican/Spanish restaurant. I looked at my wife and gestured again towards the couple that had recently been seated near us. She turned and looked. They had not ducked under their table, but were still sitting, silently staring at the run-amok Rhino, with a bored look on their faces. As if they had seen a Rhino run-amok in other restaurants before. I could have sworn the young lady actually yawned as we watched them.

The Rhino finally crashed through the large glass window at the front, after trampling the bartenders and a waitress, and bounded through the parking lot, smashing into the parked cars as police sirens started to wail in the distance.  I took my wife’s hand, and we crept out from under our table. She wiped drywall and plaster dust from her shoulders and off of my back. Amazingly, our burritos were still on our table, completely undisturbed. I pointed to the burritos, asking with my eyes if my wife was still hungry. She shook her head “no”. 

I surveyed the collapsing carnage of the restaurant, as sparks sputtered from the destroyed cash registers and multiple wall mounted TVs. The cries and moans of the patrons filled the afternoon air. It was chaos and madness and puddles of hot sauces and people. My wife and I looked for our waitress, as it only seemed right we pay our bill. No sense in stiffing the place in light of the random Rhinoceros attack. Which we understood to be on the rise due to, “wildlife cut-backs”. But we really didn’t watch the News much anymore and didn’t really know much about it. It just seemed like we should probably just pay the bill and go home. We really didn’t go out to dinner much these days anyway, cause things almost always happen whenever we do go out.

I couldn’t find the waitress, but my wife did. Trampled near the bar well. I took out about $60.00 from my wallet and stuffed it into the waitress’s apron. I felt that was probably enough to cover the two burritos and the two sodas we had.  As we started towards the demolished restaurant entrance I bumped into the man from the earlier couple. I mumbled an “excuse me”, as we passed. He snorted slightly and seemed to bristle as the incidental and accidental human contact.  I felt I had to diffuse the situation.

“Rhinos eh,” I said, gesturing to the screaming destruction all around us.

“Yup. Happens all the time now,” said the man.

“Really?” I said, genuinely surprised.

“This is our third rhino attack this week,” said the woman.

“It’s our first,” said my wife, “but we used to live in Chicago, so…”.

“Ah, so then you know,” said the man.

“Yes, I guess we do," I said.

We exchanged another glance, nodding at each other as we entered the parking lot and diverted towards our cars.

“They seemed nice,” said my wife.

“Mm-hm,” I said.

 I opened the passenger door on the car and my wife got in, pausing for our usual kiss.

“I’m in,” she said.

I closed the door and walked to the driver’s side wondering if maybe we should get ice cream on the way home.