So last week-end, as previously mentioned, my parents were in town. That said, I thought it would be a nice idea to take them to one of the most romantic restaurants in all of New York City. I’m not really sure why I came up with this idea, but it might have something to do with the fact that my mom found the restaurant’s menu on the web and sent me the link with an e-mail, reading “Take us here!!!”

Hence, I wound up on Saturday night, in a romantic restaurant, surrounded by hundreds of couples who were less than half a glass of champagne away from proposing; whilst listening to my mum talk about her toe surgery (Don’t ask). To make matters worse, the restaurant we went to, “One if by Land, Two if by Sea,” has garnered a reputation as a restaurant in which to propose to one’s beloved—a small fact which I idiotically revealed to my mom. So for the rest of the night, my mom and dad ended up playing “I spy (the couple about to become engaged).” When he felt like he was on to a sure thing, my dad would get out his wallet and lay money on the table, loudly announcing that the couple two tables over was definitely going to get engaged first. Following which, my beloved mother would dig through her oversized pocketbook, overflowing with tampons and half-used lipstick, to scrounge up $10 to counter my father’s bet. My mom felt the Asian couple in the corner was a sure thing, because as she explained to me, “Asians like that kind of thing.” (Don’t ask). My mom was equally unsubtle about indicating her table of choice. When she felt like a guy was going to propose to his girlfriend, she’d jam her heel into my shin, thrust her chin in their direction, and “whisper” “He’s gonna do it!!” At which point, the embarrassed groom-to-be would glance over at my 53 year old mother, wince, turn three shades of red, and begin peering in the bottom of his wine glass (and/or at his feet).

Needless to say, there wasn’t one engagement that night, and I’m pretty sure that there are at least a dozen girls who would like to see my mom and dad crushed under an over-sized boulder. Hell, they had probably been prepping their boyfriends for this night for months prior to the fact. I will say, however, that overall, I had a very nice time. I’ve discovered the key to enjoying an evening with the parents– drink heavily. A cosmo before dinner, a bottle of wine during dinner, I knew I was doing well when I had to concentrate on pronouncing my words without slurring.

My food was excellent (and that’s not just the booze talking). I had the duck, which recently, I’ve had some guilt about. A couple of months ago, I read this story in the Times or something about this mother duck who pulled on a policeman’s pants leg to get him to get her baby ducklings out of a well. So yeah there was some guilt involved, cause before I used to just pretend that the ducks had no clue about what was going on:

A shot gun?

Oh that looks like it might not be dangerous…

An ax?

Now why would the farmer need an ax? Perhaps he’s going to cut down a tree…

But now, I know that those ducks know what’s going on and that equals BIG GUILT.

So anyway, the roast duck was very good. Sometimes, expensive restaurants try to pull a little trick on you in which they don’t actually feed you and then they bring you a bill with like four digits in it. I went to this French restaurant in NYC not too long ago and ordered the “Sullivan County Pigeon.” (I think I was feeling adventurous that day). Now, picture if you will a full sized chicken, now toss it in Professor Zurk’s famous shrinking machine, and set it to a factor of 1/1000th. Yep, that was my “Sullivan County Pigeon.” I briefly considered sucking the meat off of the miniscule drum sticks but dismissed that as “unladylike.” So post lunch, I ended up so hungry that I hit the local deli en route to the office and ended up buying like eight or nine Snickers bars to scoff down in the women’s toilet. Let me tell you it was not a pretty sight. I do feel, however, that I might have been dubbed. NYC pigeons are like these massive, overfed beasts of a bird. How the hell was I supposed to know that the “Sullivan County” pigeon would be such a pansy of a bird? Though, in giving the restaurant owners the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that NYC pigeons are all feathers. I’ll have to squeeze one some time and check that out… Of course, at $30 per plate, I probably would have eaten the feathers if they were offered to me…