So that was really weird.

My wife called me from the road as she was driving home from work.  She asked me a controversial question.  She asked if I wanted to go some place to have breakfast for dinner.  I said sure, that would be great.  She had a place in mind but it was closed.  We went back and forth over a few places and ended up at Denny’s.

I have a bad history with Denny’s, but most of that was out of state.  The one we went to is one I used to go to every now and then.  It’s been ages upon ages though.

We got there at about 6:10 and had to wait a while before we were seated.  They were clearly short handed.  When we were at our table there were three groups.  To my right was a couple who had not been served yet.  To my left was a family who had been served, but clearly something was out of whack.  The one waiter was really sucking up to them.  I got the impression that the house had screwed something up on them.

We placed our order and waited.  After half an hour I was getting annoyed.  My beloved and I were both starving and I wanted our food to come out.  A short time later we learned why there was a delay.  There was some yelling coming from the kitchen.  Someone was having a pretty heated argument.  At this point I realized that the couple to my right still hadn’t been served either.  When the waiter came out his was really flustered.  One of them asked if he was okay and he said his cook just quit.

His cook just quit?

His cook just quit.

The waiter came out to talk to the family again.  Apparently he had messed up their order a second time.  They ordered dessert and the kitchen was out of something.  As weird as it was, it was starting to get funny.  The poor waiter was a mess, but we were starting to get a little giggly.  We were trying to decide if we should walk out, pay for our drinks (the only thing that had been brought to us) and leave, or pay for the whole order and leave.

During all of this, the recently unemployed cook was still there.  He was hanging out in the waiting area talking to another member of the staff.  Okay, it was time to leave.  Even if they brought us our food we wouldn’t want to eat it.  The vibe was just too weird.  So we went to the register and said we were leaving but wanted to pay for our order.  The now ex-cook gives us, “No, you don’t have to pay for your food.”

Like… dude… of course you’re going to tell us we don’t have to pay!  You don’t work there any more!

That’s the funniest part about this whole weird, goofy experience.  The ex-cook telling us we don’t have to pay.  We paid for the whole order and left a decent tip.  The waiter was clearly having an awful day’s work, and it was not going to get better any time soon.  We felt we should do right by him.

All in all, breakfast for dinner was just plain weird.