Why would anyone voluntarily go into Olive Garden and ask the waiter in disgust, "Do you have anything that doesn’t have peppers and onions and tomatoes in it?" It’s an ITALIAN restaurant, for fuck’s sake. That’s what Mom and I heard these two younger (I’d guess college age) women in Olive Garden ask their waiter last evening. Evidently he was unable to come up with a non-pepper/onion/tomato dish for them (go figure) so they wound up ordering salad. Even so, they refused the house dressing, which is fabulous at Olive Garden, and if I’m not mistaken, one of its big attractions, and ate it with ranch instead. Ranch is normally my favorite, but not at Olive Garden... Sheesh. I bet when they go to Red Lobster they ask, "Do you have something besides fish?" Incidentally, there wasn’t any logical explanation for them going to an Italian restaurant if they despise the main ingredients in Italian cuisine - it was just the two of them, not like one person who hates Italian getting outvoted by the other 5 members of the dining party. I think tonight I’ll go to Café Sunflower and act extremely affronted if they don’t have steak.

(If you don’t live in Atlanta, that last line is funny because Café Sunflower is a tree-huggin’ hippie vegan restaurant that wins Creative Loafing’s Best Vegetarian Restaurant in Atlanta award every year.)

MONTOYA DELENDA EST!