At least we can laugh about it...

...because if we didn't, I'm sure we'd have to cry.

So my friend Carla and I had a birthday party last night. I think maybe Carla and I shouldn't have parties anymore!

We had a fairly simple plan - dinner and a play. The play was wonderful! We saw the Forest Grove community theatre's production of Into the Woods, which is a musical based on a whole bunch of different fairy tales. They did a fabulous job, I thought.

Dinner, not so good.

We were at a 50s-style soda fountain across the street from the theatre. Nobody'd eaten there before, Carla's mom had suggested it because it's close to the theatre and we couldn't come up with any good ideas (and she'd never been there before either). We had reservations, they knew nine of us were going to be there. We got in, sat down, and proceeded to order. It's mostly a soda/ice cream place, but they have hot dogs and salads and sandwiches and stuff.

Angela wanted a chef salad, but she doesn't eat ham so she asked for just turkey. The waitress (who was probably about 16) said that was perfect because they were out of ham. Carla also ordered the chef salad without ham. Jenn wanted a chicken salad sandwich. Diane, Heidi and I all ordered pastrami. Carley ordered soup and salad. Laurel and Peggy ordered hot dogs.

So the waitress comes back and tells Jenn that they're out of both chicken salad and tuna salad. So she changed her order to a chef salad minus the ham, since, remember, they were out of that too.

Then the waitress comes back and says basically, they're out of meat, except for hot dogs. So everyone who ordered chef salad will basically be getting a dinner salad. At which point I offered to run to Safeway for her, and I wasn't entirely kidding. She said they have enough pastrami for one sandwich, so the other two will have to reorder. Diane and Heidi decided I should get the pastrami since it was my party. So Heidi ordered soup and salad and Diane asked if they had chili, and she said yes, so she ordered a chili dog and coleslaw.

Meanwhile, we're being very good natured about it, and making jokes and stuff, and just trying to make it bearable. The waitress was SO embarrassed. She just cringed every time she came to our table.

She comes back a few minutes later to Diane, looking all sheepish. Diane said "I asked if you had chili before I ordered it!!!!" She said "no! We have chili! But we're out of coleslaw!" At which point Angela says "PLEASE tell me you had a big group in today or something!" The waitress said yes, they did. Which explains the lack of food!

So then a few minutes later she comes back to Heidi and Carley, who'd ordered soup and salad (and by that time I'd given Carley a quarter of my sandwich), and said they were out of soup! So Heidi ended up not ordering anything at all, because by now she just wanted to beat her head against the table. There were only four of the nine of us who actually got what we ordered the first time around!

What a DISASTER! But we had a good time in spite of the lack of food, lots of laughs, and I can pretty much guarantee you that nobody's going to forget this party any time soon!

Oh, and one more thing - thanks to the play, I now know what I need to do to get pregnant. The whole premise of the first act is that this baker and his wife want a baby but can't get pregnant. So all I have to do is find a witch, a cow white as milk (Jack and the Beanstock's cow), a cloak red as blood (Little Red Riding Hood), hair the color of corn (Rapunzel), and a shoe pure as gold (Cinderella's slippers were gold, not glass). Feed the cloak, shoe and hair to the cow, and let the witch drink its milk. Presto! Pregnancy! Now why didn't I think of that...