When I watch television I like to trust everything I am told. I believe every word of the news, adhere to the warnings and buy the products of info-mercials, and understand from Loony Toons that if I get hit with an anvil…I’ll be okay. So why should I trust commercials any less?
I recently ate at a fine Italian restaurant. It’s known as the Olive Garden. You probably have not heard of it, there’s only one, and it’s in my neighborhood. Yep, right next to the ol’ mom and pop Walmart.
In their local advertisements I learned that apparently it’s where all real Italians go to eat. The food there is so authentic that if you were, like, the king of Italy, you couldn’t even conceive a pasta sauce as good as theirs.
I entered the store with two other Jews, an Irishman, and three guys I kidnapped from the McDonalds across the street, just to show them how Italian this place was. When I asked the hostess, Michelle, where all the Italian families sat, she seemed confused. I guess when you’re there, you’re family, and therefore the whole family was really sitting together, so she had no way to point to one particular section.
Our server Mao Ling couldn’t so much pronounce “spaghetti.” But it was probably because he was so frickin’ Italian that I couldn’t understand him! The meal, needless to say, was exquisite. I took the “tour of Italy.” I don’t even need to ever see Italy now; apparently, it looks like a piece of lasagna, some fettuccini alfredo and a hunk of chicken parmesan.
And to top it all off, just as we were leaving, we got to hear a traditional Italian birthday song called, “Happy happy birthday, happy happy birthday.” To think, we might have missed it if we left more quickly!
I’m just so glad that all the Italians in my neighborhood have a place to go to meet up, share stories about Sicily and drink fine Italian table wine out of big jugs. I mean, I walked into a Taco Bell the other day and saw a Mexican family eating lunch, and I just thought, “Damn, can’t you do better than this crap?”