Smile! You're On Wild Kingdom!

My husband's cousins have a son attending the Major University in my city. Cousin J e-mailed us to let us know they were coming in for parents' weekend and wanted to get together with us for dinner. TV Stevie & I checked our planners, and lo and behold: we were free on the evening suggested. TV e-mailed our acceptance, and Cousin J e-mailed back that she'd made reservations for 7:30pm, Saturday night at an Italian restaurant on the strip where all chain/theme restaurants dwell. This particular restaurant has four locations in upstate New York, which, I suppose, makes it a regional chain.

The parking lot was crowded when we arrived. The university's Homecoming Football game had gone into double overtime, creating unexpected crowds. A young man in a fedora, looking like an escapee from the original Godfather, had a walkie-talkie and a flashlight and was directing traffic in the lot. People congregated outside the restaurant doors, and not all of them were smoking.

After standing on line for several moments, we found Cousins H & J, their student son, and his girlfriend. The place was mobbed. And loud. When we finally made it to the hostess stand, what I'd been hearing on line was confirmed: a three hour wait for a table unless you'd done something referred to as "call ahead seating." Then the wait for a table was only an hour and a half.

At this point, we fell into a Woody Allen movie.

Cousin J said, "I have reservations for 7:30."

The hostess said, "We don't take reservations."

A woman standing next to me said in a downstate accent, "Yes, you do. Two days ago, I made reservations with you for 7:30 tonight."

Hostess: "We don't take reservations."

Cousin J: "I spoke to a man four days ago, and he took my reservation for 6 people for tonight at 7:30. I even asked if I need to call again and confirm and was told that wouldn't be necessary."

Hostess: "I'm sorry, we don't take reservations. All we do is have call-ahead seating. You can call up to a half-hour before you arrive, and when you arrive, we put your name ahead of everyone else. But we don't take reservations."

Third irrate customer, also speaking with downstate accent: "But a man took my reservation three days ago, for 7:30 tonight."

Manager arrives. He's fourteen, as opposed to the twelve-year-old hostess. "We never take reservations."

I start looking for cameras. For Woody.

Fourth irrate customer, from somewhere behind me, in a downstate accent: "Really? Someone took mine for tonight last week."

And so on. For several moments. In the meantime, the line behind us grew and grew, while more and more people, all with downstate accents, chimed in claiming that they, too, had made reservations for 7:30pm at this restaurant within the past week.

Manager and hostess continued to deny such a thing could happen.

Cousin J turns to me. "Is there some place else we could go?"

I suggest another Italian restaurant, not on the strip of chains, but close and easy to get to from where we were.

TV Stevie and I talked about it as we walked to our car. Mr. Fedora Parking Attendant apologize profusely and continued to peddle the myth of no reservations. He couldn't have been happy to hear us discuss a competitor. He, however, gets points for apologizing and for graciousness. I think he was sixteen.

Cousin J has a GPS in her vehicle, so she called the other restaurant and learned there was only a 90 minute wait. She had our names placed on the list.

The restaurant I'd suggested is actually two restaurants: fine dining downstairs and casual dining upstairs. We discovered there was only a 20 minute wait upstairs, so we opted for that.

What a treat! We could hear ourselves converse, the food was good, the atmosphere was better than a chain/theme restaurant . . . and they let us stay and talk until they were closing down.

Cousin J told us that her hotel had coupons for free drinks at the first restaurant and that she would collect all she could and mail them to us. They arrived yesterday. Each coupon is good for one free alcoholic beverage with every entree purchased.

Revenge isn't always sweet. Sometimes, it's liquid.

My critique group and I are making plans . . .