The Good, The Bad, The Beautiful

The Beautiful

My daughter's art work was selected to be on display at the Carroll County Arts' Council in Westminster, Maryland. Several students from each grade from elementary schools all over the county were selected. We were surprised to learn that in addition to her picture, 2 of her friends, our neighbor, and 2 of my son's friends had artwork selected.

The Carroll County Arts' Council is in the old movie theater in the historic section of downtown Westminster. It was a really neat building.

The Bad

After the art fair, we decided to have dinner. We first went to The Olive Garden. By now it was after 6pm. I went in and they told us it would be an hour wait. An hour? On a Thursday??? That's crazy!

We decided to go to Applebee's instead. We quickly placed our order and got our drinks. The baby was fussy sitting in the car seat, so I got her out. She immediately began diving for things on the table (as all babies do). She was a handful all evening. Not in a bad way, just a busy-body.

My appetizer arrived in a reasonable amount of time - mozzarella sticks. Mmmmm.....fried cheese! The only way to make it better would be to wrap it in bacon and dip it in cheese. Mmmm!!!

We finished our appetizer and waited for the main meal. Then we waited some more. And for fun, we waited some more. Finally the waiter comes over and apologizes. He said he put in the order a little late, but it would be out soon. So we waited. And waited a little more. By now it has been 45 minutes.

Am I a magnet for crappy service? Or is it my wife? She always the one that finds hair in her food. One time she even found a finger nail clipping. Gross!!! That was at Mackey's in Ocean City. We don't go there anymore!

Finally the food arrives. Guess what? My Mac'N Jack'N Cheese with chicken pasta is cold. No, I don't mean it wasn't hot. It was cold. Like when you grab a dish of leftovers out of the refrigerator. I accept the fact that they do not cook food in restaurants anymore. It's just frozen dishes that are microwaved. However, this was not acceptable.

I called the manager over, explained the problem and asked him to return the dish and remove it from the bill. (You never send food back and ask it to be returned to you!) He was very apologetic.

About 15 minutes later we are ready to leave and the waiter comes over. He told us that we are good to go whenever we are done. Applebee's was picking up the tab. Free meal. How about that? That's what I mean by good customer service. The time I found a shard of ceramic in our crab dip at Liberatore's in Eldersburg, they offered us a free replacement appetizer. Oooo!!!! Guess where we haven't been since that incident?!!! Guess how many people I told that Liberatore's serves crab dip with ceramic shards? A hell of a lot!!!!

The Good

After we left, we meandered over to Hoffman's, a family-owned ice cream joint. They have GOOD ice cream. I got peppermint. Yummy! My wife got cake-batter. It certainly tasted like cake batter, though I'm not sure that I'd enjoy a whole cone-full of it.

On the way out, my son complains that he doesn't like cones. Since when??? We've been coming here for years and he's never mentioned that he doesn't like cones. Apparently, however, I was supposed to know this and he was really upset with me.

And not 1 minute in the car ride away from Hoffman's he starts screaming. He dropped the cone on the floor of the minivan. Now if you are in a family and you have a minivan, you know how disgusting this is. I pulled over and picked it up. It had pretzel crumbs, hair, dust, and several unidentifiable objects sticking to it. Again - this was my fault. I should have known.

I got him settled and returned to Hoffman's. I handed them the cone with its unique sprinkles and told them we had a little accident and asked for a new one. I pulled out a $5 and handed it to the girl behind the counter. She wouldn't accept it and said it was okay. What a wonderful place! And if she wasn't in high school, I'd tell you how cute she was.