Stewing in My Theories

Helen and I were perusing our menus at the Mesa Grill, Bobby Flay's restaurant at Atlantis in the Bahamas. We discussed the various dishes, considering their culinary merits. After all, we could only each eat one entree. We wanted it to count. We wanted to order well.

I ordered the salmon, which probably sounds like a cop out, since every menu in every restaurant all over the planet lists salmon on it. But no other salmon in the world was as tender and divine as the one delivered to my table. I received a large portion, perfectly seasoned. It practically melted in my mouth.

Helen ordered the cilantro grouper. As soon as Helen said it, our waitress replied, "That's a stew."

Helen smiled sweetly and answered, "Okay."

I thought that was an awfully strange response to the waitress's statement. As a friend, I couldn't let Helen dumbly agree to whatever the waitress said. I asked, "You know she said that's a stew?"

Helen smiled and nodded.

"Helen," I barked a tad louder, afraid she couldn't hear me over the din of other diners, "a stew. She said you ordered a stew."

"I know," Helen snapped.

It was my turn to answer okay, even though it went against my theory. I believe that if a waitress warns me about what I ordered, even if it's a seemingly benign warning, like I've ordered stew, she's trying to send me a serious message, encoded, of course. Following my theory, I immediately change my order. She's giving me this information for a real reason, not just because I've ordered stew.

Helen, I learned, doesn't share the same hairs-bristling-on-the-back-of-the-neck suspicious nature as me. She prefers adventure. This is what Helen got for her devil-be-damned attitude:

Helen can have it. I'd rather stew in my theories.