Mashed potatoes are crunchy?

After spending the day working at the office and not getting any lunch, I decided to drop by one of the local cafe's for a nice dinner.

I strolled in, found a seat, ordered up some iced tea and looked over the menu. I don't know why I bothered, I knew what I wanted. The waitress, also the order of the joint, came back and I ordered up the hamburger steak, with extra onions. Their vegetable choices were limited to French Fries or Mashed Potatoes. I chose the mashed potatoes, little did I know I would regret that decision in about 15 minutes.

Hamburger steak is a Southern thing, I think. It's basically a patty of hamburger meat, sometimes packed with breadcrumbs and onions, fried up in a skillet and then smothered in sautéed onions and brown gravy. If the brown gravy is made from the skillet drippings, it's even better.

While I waited for my order, I began to doctor up the iced tea with a Sweet-N-Low, I heard a voice from across the room. It sounded familiar, so I glanced up and sure enough, it was Leroy Gilman.

For the non-Grahamites (citizens of Graham, TX) reading this, let me tell you about Leroy. He is a local guy in Graham who builds computers for people, so he owns a small business that he runs out of his house, I guess. He seems to have lots of time on his hands, because he is always going to Microsoft and Intel-sponsored events around the country, especially in the Metroplex.

My take is he is a wanna-be Microsoft evangelist. I say wanna-be because he doesn't work for Microsoft, but sings the praises of their product at every opportunity. Of course, he does the same for Intel as well. Hey, you can't knock it, I guess, he gets lots of free things from them and others, so more power to him.

He walked over and sat down since I was alone. I had dropped Kathy off at the airport the day before to catch a flight to Connecticut to go see her mother and grandmother.

Leroy proceeded to quiz me about how many PCs I had and what OS I was running. I wasn't aware there was a competition for such things, but I think it is his avenue to brag about how much free stuff he gets from Intel and Microsoft.

'...I got 60 servers from Intel....' he said. '...they give them to me. Of course, I can't sell them....' he continued.

I nodded my head. This must be some 'geek' way of measuring wealth, I thought. I was trying not to be rude, but wasn't in the mood to discuss anything, I just wanted my hamburger steak.

The waitress brought out my salad with Ranch dressing and I ate it, eager for the main course. Moments later she popped the plate down and my eyes widened at the mound of charred mammal flesh swimming in brown gravy, with hints of sautéed onions peeking out from underneath. I could feel my arteries hardening. Bring me a Vytorin and make it a double!

I plunged my fork into the cooked goodness, savoring the mixture of flavorings as I chewed and listed to Leroy continue to tell me of his Microsoft visits and his free lunches at their expense. I had whittled my way through about 1/4 of the hamburger steak and had sampled the potatoes.

I reach in and grabbed a big scoop of spuds and popped it into my mouth. As I begin to chew I crunched into something. At first, I thought, it was a crispy, burnt piece of hamburger from the edge, like you get on a Herd's burger in Jacksboro. I stopped chewing and placed a napkin to my mouth to retrieve the object while Leroy continued to talk about PCs, Microsoft, Intel and Vista, usually all within the same breath.

When I opened the napkin to view the what I had chomped on, I almost lost my dinner. At first glance it was some kind of bug.

I proceeded to expel the rest of contents of my mouth into napkin after napkin, trying to rid my palate of whatever remnants of the foreign object I could. I quickly washed the rest down with a big slug of tea, figuring the stomach acid would dissolve anything that could be harmful.

Leroy never suspected something was amiss. If he did, he didn't break off the Microsoft topic he was on.

Now, I was in a quandary. I didn't want to continue to eat the food and I didn't want to make a scene in the cafe. I know it was an accident and there was no sense inciting any panic.

I got up and walked to the counter, napkin full of bug remnants in tow.

'You ready to go?', she inquired.

I quickly said 'no' and opened up the napkin, revealing my food visitor. I said something like '...I don't think this is supposed to be here...', showing her the cooked and now partially-chomped item.

Horrified, she exclaimed '...on my God, that's a yellow jacket...' and turned to the cook to show her. She might have said wasp, I don't recall. All I could think about was how did he wind up in my spuds.

'You want me to make you something else....' she offered.

'No,' I said, 'I think I might throw up...', thinking about what might have happened had my little friend been alive and stung me in the mouth.

I returned to the table, where Leroy still sat, and proceeded to get my sunglasses and get ready to leave.

'It's just a little protein', he said, laughing about the incident.

'Yeah, but I wasn't in the mood for that type of protein', I retorted and got up from the table.

The cook came out and apologized. I could see she was quite surprised and embarrassed at the incident. I told her there was no need to apologize, accidents happen.

I went to the register to pay my bill. The owner refused to allow me to even pay for the tea. I tossed a $5 in the tip jar and went outside, Leroy following closely behind.

'You want one of those Intel motherboards?', he said. 'I got them in the car. They give me a box of them'.

'If you are gonna give me one, I will take it', I said.

He went outside and fetched one and then proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes explaining the cooling needs of it and why it needed a special cooling solution.

The old saying goes 'There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch'. There is no such thing as a free motherboard if you have to spend half-an-hour hearing about it from Leroy. :)