We had a good day today, by almost all modern standards. The Puddinette got a hair cut she claims she needed badly. I hadn’t noticed, but then, you could drop a baby rhinoceros into the family room and I probably wouldn’t notice that either. Apparently my powers of observations are strictly limited to whatever I’m focused on at a given moment. At any rate, the salon visit went well and she returned home pleased. This is not always the case, so one tends to be very appreciative when it happens. So, a “Huzzah!” for Happy Hair!

We were also offered babysitting by the maternal grandparents so that the better half and I might enjoy a dinner out, together. We had a wonderful evening and the kids had a pizza party and all-around good time with Grandma and Grandpa.

The best part about dinner is that it afforded us the opportunity to use this year’s Cheesecake Factory Gift Card. Every year, for Christmas, the Puddinette’s incredibly wonderful boss sends a Factory gift card from California. I gleefully anticipate the annual opportunity to get my cheesecake on, sometime between the middle of December and my birthday in March.

There is, of course, much more involved than just cheesecake. Heck, the menu alone is epic and rivals War and Peace in both detail and number of pages. There is definitely no lack of tasty goodness to enjoy at the place, and we did, rest assured, selfishly eat enough to feed the small army of snow-shoveling oompa loompas hiding somewhere in my neighbor. But as a fellow who has no great need to consume dessert at all, I tell you without reservation, the cheesecake is the reason to dine there.

There is one small problem with the place; waiting to have dinner there on a Saturday night can be a bureaucratic exercise more daunting than renewing one’s license at your friendly neighborhood DMV. Note that I said “waiting to have dinner” there. The dining itself is always a very pleasurable experience, and I don’t recall that I’ve ever received poor table service. Getting a table, though, is kind of like playing Monopoly. Deep down, you believe that eventually you’re going to enjoy yourself, but the buying of properties, building of improvements, paying the occasional $500 fee from the cursed yellow stack of Community Chest cards, and the unfortunate Boardwalk stops that cause your older brother to laugh malevolently as he shows you the price of “rent” for a property bristling so with red plastic hotels all test your ability to actually enjoy the seemingly 3-day long event. Likewise, the Cheesecake Factory has a line you have to wait in before you can even put your name on the waiting list. Then, after you wait for an hour, you’re supposed to get into another line and wait for a pager. At some point in the span of time after you receive your pager and before you youngest child graduates from college, your pager will buzz with glorious LED flashes, signaling the readiness of your table.

There is an alternative, of course. When you grandparents are saddled with your four small children, you can’t be camped out at the Factory for a week waiting for Springsteen tickets…er…a table for two. For the aggressive and/or pressed for time, there is the Bar Area. The bar itself and associated high-top tables are seat-yourself; when someone leaves, it’s first come, first served. What this engenders in an environment where bar loitering takes on a strategic importance. With your “waiting-to-wait-for-a-pager” cocktail in hand, you position yourself carefully, but nonchalantly, towards any seat or table looking to become available momentarily. You pretend to make conversation with your spouse while constantly evaluating the room, focusing on any diner paying his/her bill, ready to spring forward and pounce, jaguar-style, on the suddenly vacant table or stool. Finally, your rear-end hits a still-warm seat, marking the table as your own. You cheer victoriously with the knowledge that you just preserved two hours of your life, regardless of the fact that you had to knock over a pregnant woman, grandmother, and three orphans in the effort.

There are few exercises in life as sweet or rewarding as successfully executing the Bar Table Vulture Maneuver. Cheesecake always tastes better when you earn it.

pud’n