Hairy Food

Earlier this week, I'm out with the gang for trivia night at a local bar/restaurant. Meticulously following our protocol, we rush to get our food order in before the Happy Hour cut-off. You see, come 7 pm at this particular Glen Burnie restaurant, the happy hour prices vanish quicker than an IRS hard drive.

Well, my buddy Rip gets his food first. I think he ordered the shrimp tacos. Anyway, after a couple of bites, a look of panic forms on his face as he slowly pushes his plate of food aside. Confused, I give him the "WTF" gesture. He informs us that he just swallowed a long piece of hair. Instantly, everyone at the table let out a harmonious, "Ewwww!"

Now, the only thing worse than finding a hair in your food, is swallowing a piece of hair in your food. And for some reason, it always seems worse when it's someone else's hair. What made this particular situation even worse was that my friend has the same hairstyle as a bowling ball. So, he knew it wasn't his hair that was slowly making it's way down his esophagus.

Moving on......

Several years ago, Tina and I stopped off at an Eastern Shore crab house. We ordered the crab dip as an appetizer. After a couple of bites, Tina looks at me and says, "Ken, please tell me that's not a hair in there."

Looking at the bowl very closely, I saw that it was indeed a hair. So, trying to keep Tina happy by fulfilling her request, I said, "Nope. There's no hair in there."

Of course, there was indeed a hair in there. And right on cue, the waitress comes over and says, "So, how is the crab dip."

I answer, "It's actually not bad, but I think it could use a shave."

She immediately apologized and offered to get us another order. We told her that it wasn't her fault and that we appreciated her offer but we were done with the crab dip for the day. We would just wait for our steamed crabs. Aside from being delicious, an added benefit of steamed crabs is that it's virtually impossible for a hair to find it's way under those shells.

Well, about a year later, we found ourselves back at this same crab house. The previous hair incident was a distant memory, so we decided to try the crab dip again. When we placed our order, we joked with our waitress about our hairy experience from last time. She got a kick of how cavalier we were about it. She said most customers would have absolutely freaked out. As she walked away, she joked, "Ok, let me put your order in. And we'll try to make it without the hair this time."

A short time later, a server brought us our food. Before we even took the first bite, we noticed a long black hair contrasting perfectly against the cream-colored crab dip. I'm not making this up. We couldn't believe it. At first, we thought our waitress might have had a twisted sense of humor and put it there on purpose. We looked toward the kitchen half expecting to see the wait staff giggling while peeking out of the kitchen to see our reaction.

Our waitress eventually came by and asked the familiar question, "So, how is everything?"

Tina cut right to the chase, "You're not going to believe this. There's a hair in there."

The waitress had a genuine look of shock on her face as she said, "Oh my God, are you serious?"

She was probably thinking that we were just trying to get a free meal. But we assured her that it wasn't this case. Our only request was to get an appetizer without hair in it. The first time, although still a little grossed out, our attitude was, "Oh well, sh*t happens." But to have it happen again on our very next visit was a little hard to absorb.

Our waitress assured us that we wouldn't be charged for the hairy crab dip. Wow, really? We didn't make a big deal about it. We just finished our drinks and then headed off to another restaurant where, thankfully, we found some hairless appetizers.

And last year, while dining at a Delaware brewpub, my sister-in-law had her own brush with hairy food. While we all sat around the table, we noticed that something was going on with her. She looked like a cat trying to cough up a hair ball. It turned out to be pretty close because she was actually trying to hack up a hair that she had just swallowed. I'm not even sure what kind of food she was eating. But it was definitely garnished with a long piece of hair. I never know what to do in these situations. Should I have performed the Heimlich Maneuver? It seems a bit extreme. After all, it's a piece of hair, not a semi-chewed chunk of ribeye.

I must be getting immune to this stuff. I was eating dinner at a local restaurant a month or so ago and discovered a short, straight hair on my plate (Thank God, it wasn't curly!). The meal was really good and I had already eaten about three-quarters of it. In fact, it was was so good that I just brushed the hair off of my plate and finished the entire meal. Now, there's a serious compliment to the chef!


kw