A few weekends ago, I visited a good friend of mine at Lehigh University. He lives off campus with his frat brothers...ten of them, and there was no mistake that ten guys lived in this particular house.
But let’s not dwell on the house; my intent here is to comment on my experience dining with these guys.
After the Saturday night festivities, the house awoke around 1 p.m., groggy and starving. Sunday brunch, which seemed to be a regular event among the residents, today would be hosted by Alexandra’s Bistro in Bethlehem. The small establishment was quite the opposite of a bistro. In fact, it was a diner. Brunch all day, gyros on special - sounds like a standard Greek diner to me.
The seven boys arrived in two waves, giving the waitress time to fill up my coffee twice before taking any breakfast orders.
They all ordered breakfast - eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, a hot dog? It was hard to say no to the dollar fifty hot dogs.
Anyway, each plate that arrived was pilled high with breakfast. Ketchup was been passed around, milkshakes were being downed, and amongst all the chaos of breakfast, each indulgent twenty-something frat boy used both his fork and his knife, and dared not touch his food with his fingers. It was absolutely remarkable. Because I ordered mozzarella sticks, I was the only one at the table using my hands!
Each boy politely moved his eggs around his plate with his silverware, using his knife to delicately push the eggs onto his fork. Toast was buttered in a royal fashion; no shoving the bread into the butter packets or dumping jelly into a glob on the toast.
Mouths were shut while chewing, but as soon as they opened some profane comment about the girls of last night escaped.
It seemed as though I was sitting in the middle of some epic paradox.
They looked like frat boys, they sounded like frat boys....they smelled like frat boys, but they ate like princes.
Go figure.
For me, Easter has always been a gluttonous holiday. Traveling all over creation to see everyone possible and collect all the candy and presents from each of my aunts and uncles! Then my parents would have a basket for me filled with bullshit - like movies, coloring books, markers, toys, clothes.
Well - eventually we grow up.
This Easter was a real dose of reality for me.
As you all know, I work in a restaurant - if you didn’t know that, now you do. And you don’t realize, until days like Easter, that these people you work with are definitely the family of everyday life. Christ, I think I see my managers more than I see my mother. And my girlfriends always want to listen to the sinfulness that happened the one night this weekend that we didn’t go out together.
Aside from the fact that it was Easter, it was Sunday morning. And if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you know that this is the worst shift ever...BRUNCH!
Five of us on the floor, twelve pots of coffee (just for the servers!), eight parties, and the usual Sunday morning hangover; religious pamphlets instead of tips, five kids with one adult, and EGGS - ugh.
I was finally out of tables by 5:30 p.m., with thirty five dollars in my pocket. I decided that it was time for a few beers. I smashed two Blue Moons over a game of Asshole, seeing as Blue Moons were on special this holy Sunday ($3!!), left with twenty six buck and a new outlook on Easter family.
The REAL family we find are the ones that sympathize with the pain of a Sunday morning; they get you the Imodium at 7/11 when you desperately need it half way through the shift, they make you a cheese steak for breakfast (on the house), and most importantly they make good company for you while you suffer together horribly at work on a Sunday morning - but then again, not everyone can have off on Easter.
A few weekends ago, I visited a good friend of mine at Lehigh University. He lives off campus with his frat brothers...ten of them, and there was no mistake that ten guys lived in this particular house.
