The Roach

Last week was one of those weeks.

To cap off this horrible week Bryan and I went to Katz's.

Katz's is one of the few restaurants open at all hours of the night in Austin. Bryan and I had gone there once, and had a decent but overpriced meal, served by an excellent waitress, who I swear, was at least seven feet tall. The next time we went, a large roach was making the rounds at tables near us. His little roach dance was cut short, however, when one of the waiters smooshed him into the carpet.

That incident was disturbing on multiple levels:

1. the crunching, smooshing noises that were made as the waiter crushed then smeared dead roach all over the carpet
2. there are roaches at Katz's
3. nobody cleaned up the roach guts from the floor
4. see number 2

So Bryan and I had vowed to never go back.

However, we decided every restaurant deserves another chance, and so we decided to go back one more time. And really, so much had gone wrong this week, that really, what's a bad meal to top it off.

It was a bad idea.

After lackluster service, our disinterested waitress brings us the check, and puts it next to the two, stacked, tiny plates that we didn't use for our french fries.

Bryan and I continued eating, and then I saw it.

A roach.

Oh, oh, a roach. Big deal. It's not like I'm about to get up and start screaming in terror. But there were a few things about this roach that made it particularly disturbing:

1. it was on its back, flailing its little roach legs
2. it was on a little plate at the far end of the table
3. the delivery mechanism for this roach must surely have been our waitress

Now, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do in this situation. I don't know what proper etiquette is. Neither did Bryan.

I do know, however, that our waitress was beyond incompetent. She made an amazing effort to not only pretend she did not see the roach, but rush by our table and ignore us since she had already dropped off the check.

I saw her glance over three times. The first time, I will actually believe she didn't see the roach. I can buy that.

I glared at her. The next time she looked over, I glared at her, then the roach, then back at her. Now, it is plausible that maybe, there was some chance, she didn't see the half-dead flailing roach on our table.

The third time she looked over I know she saw it. And she did nothing, and proceeded to ignore both the roach and us.

By this time, I was actually starting to get disgusted. By the roach, by this week, by everything. I just wanted to leave.

Bryan paid the check and drew a little arrow on it. Then slipped the check onto the plate, under the roach, so the arrow pointed to it.

We left. The hostess asked us how everything was. Bryan told her, and we got some cockamamee story about how roaches have to "make the dying roaches leave the home to die out in the wild." Geez, thank you for that fascinating piece of roach trivia. Any more tidbits of roach life you'd like to share with us?

"I should have written something on the check." Bryan said.

"Like what? Hi, you have a roach problem."

"No, something like, 'his name is timmy.'"

It was a fitting end to one of those weeks.

It's not entirely clear from this episode, but I'm back to being Charlie Brown. For a while, it was off, but now, it's back in full force.