I ask you, who brings a DOG to a RESTAURANT? I don’t care if it’s normal in France. NOT SHAVING UNDER YOUR ARMS IF YOU ARE A GIRL IS NORMAL IN FRANCE. Does that maybe TELL you something about France? I mean, for God’s sake, they eat SNAILS there. SNAILS. Who in their right mind thinks that if something is normal in France, it is at all socially acceptable here in the United States?
I’ll tell you who. My grandmother, that’s who.
Seriously. She doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. She’s all, “But of course I brought Rommel.”
To Les Hautes Manger. To my birthday dinner. My grandmother brought her DOG to MY BIRTHDAY DINNER.
She says it’s only because when she leaves Rommel alone, he licks his fur off. It is an obsessive compulsive disorder diagnosed by the Royal Genovian vet, and Rommel has prescription medication he is supposed to take to help keep it at bay.
That’s right: My grandmoth
er’s dog is on Prozac.
But if you ask me, I don’t think OCD is Rommel’s problem. Rommel’s problem is that he lives with Grandmère. If I had to live with Grandmère, I would totally lick off all my hair, too. If my tongue were long enough, anyway.
Still, just because her dog suffers from OCD is NO excuse for Grandmère to bring him to MY BIRTHDAY DINNER. In a Hermes purse. With a broken clasp, no less.
Because what happened while I was in the ladies’ room? Oh, Rommel escaped from Grandmère’s purse. And started streaking around the restaurant, desperate to evade capture—as who under Grandmère’s tyrannical rule wouldn’t?
I can only imagine what the patrons of Les Hautes Manger must have thought, seeing this eight-pound hairless toy poodle zipping in and out from beneath the tablecloths. Actually, I know what they thought. I know what they thought, because Michael told me later. They thought Rommel was a giant rat.
And it’s true, without hair, he does have a very rodent-like appearance.
But still, I don’t think climbing up onto their chairs and shrieking their heads off was necessarily the most helpful thing to do about it. Although Michael did say a number of the tourists whipped out digital cameras and started shooting away. I am sure there is going to be a headline in some Japanese newspaper tomorrow about the giant rat problem of the Manhattan four-star restaurant scene.
Anyway, I didn’t see what happened next, but Michael told me it was just like in a Baz Luhrmann movie, only Nicole Kidman was nowhere to be seen: This busboy who apparently hadn’t noticed the ruckus came hustling by, holding this enormous tray of half-empty soup bowls. Suddenly Rommel, who’d been cornered by my dad over by the raw bar, darted into the busboy’s path, and the next thing everyone knew, lobster bisque was flying everywhere.
Thankfully, most of it landed on Grandmère. The lobster bisque, I mean. She fully deserved to have her Chanel suit ruined on account of being stupid enough to bring her DOG to MY BIRTHDAY DINNER. I so wish I had seen this. No one would admit it later—not even Mom—but I bet it was really, really, really funny to see Grandmère covered in soup. I swear, if that’s all I had gotten for my birthday, I’d have been totally happy.
But by the time I got out of the bathroom, Grandmère had been thoroughly dabbed by the maître d’. All you could see of the soup were these wet spots all over her chest. I completely missed out on all the fun (as usual). Instead, I got there just in time to see the maître d’ imperiously ordering the poor busboy to turn in his dishtowel: He was fired.
FIRED!!! And for something that was fully not his fault!
Jangbu—that was the busboy’s name—totally looked as if he were going to cry. He kept saying over and over again how sorry he was. But it didn’t matter. Because if you spill soup on a dowager princess in New York City, you can kiss your career in the restaurant biz good-bye. It would be like if a gourmet cook got caught going to McDonald’s in Paris. Or if P. Diddy got caught buying underwear at Wal-Mart. Or if Nicky and Paris Hilton got caught lying around in their Juicy Couture sweats on a Saturday night, watching National Geographic Explorer, instead of going out to party. It is simply Not Done.
I tried to reason with the maître d’ on Jangbu’s behalf, after Michael told me what had happened. I said in no way could Grandmère hold the restaurant responsible for what HER dog had done. A dog she wasn’t even supposed to have HAD in the restaurant in the first place.
But it didn’t do any good. The last I saw of Jangbu, he was sadly heading back toward the kitchen.
I tried to get Grandmère, who was, after all, the injured party—or the allegedly injured party, since of course she wasn’t in the least bit hurt—to talk the maître d’ into giving Jangbu his job back. But she remained stubbornly unmoved by my pleas on Jangbu’s behalf. Even my reminding her that many busboys are immigrants, new to this country, with families to support back in their native lands, left her cold.
“Grandmère,” I cried, in desperation. “What makes Jangbu so different from Johanna, the African orphan you are sponsoring on my behalf? Both are merely trying to make their way on this planet we call Earth.”
“The difference,” Grandmère informed me, as she held Rommel close, trying to calm him down (it took the combined efforts of Michael, my dad, Mr. G, and Lars to finally catch Rommel, right before he made a run for it through the revolving door and out to Fifth Avenue and to freedom on the toy poodle underground railroad) “between Johanna and Jangbu is that Johanna did not spill SOUP ALL OVER ME!”
God. She is such a CRAB sometimes.
So now here I am, knowing that somewhere in the city— Queens, most likely—is currently a young man whose family will probably starve, and all because of MY BIRTHDAY. That’s right. Jangbu lost his job because I WAS BORN.
I’m sure wherever Jangbu is right now, he is wishing I wasn’t. Born, that is.
And I can’t say that I blame him one little bit.
Friday, May 2, 1 a.m., the loft
My snowflake necklace is really nice, though. I am never ever taking it off.
Friday, May 2, 1:05 a.m., the loft