All that and meat too?

Last weekend I went to Florida to attend a seminar with my dad and my brother. Although a super-quick trip, the weekend was awesome.

The weather -- 70's and sunny - was perfect. (Thankfully, the tornadoes which had been hanging out in Tampa for days just prior to our arrival had moved on.)

The seminar -- 10 hours of information overload - was excellent -- highly informative.

The hotel -- very nice --despite the fact that double beds and a roll-away constituted a fire-hazard. (And although Josh tried, he couldn't find anyone willing to accept his bribe to bring us the additional bed. Oh well, it was a play-back to 30 years ago -- I had no problem sharing a bed with my dad. Now, if I'd had to share with my brother...well, that might have been a different story.)

Josh was given this 'special' t-shirt from the seminar instructor because he is the King of questions. The thing is, he asks the questions we all have...doing us all a favor.

 The company -- well, everyone just needs to get away from time to time with people they love. It was a weekend filled with laughter and I truly enjoyed myself. Sure, I missed the ones I love who were at home...but it was really fun just being with my dad and my brother. Hanging out sharing a hotel room, leaning up against a water-covered counter because TO. THIS. DAY. Josh does not know how to dry the counter off after washing his face. (Lucky for me, I learned many years ago to look down before leaning over after he's been near a faucet.)

The food -- Let's just say that sometimes the company makes up for the food. It's likely hard to tell from this picture...but this was my PRIME RIB....as part of my Surf-N-Turf $25 meal from an oh-so-lovely dining establishment.

You can try to guess which is the meat...and which is the fat.
It's kind of one of those, "had to be there sort of situations' but suffice it to say that my "medium well" came out "raw" so I sent it back. And if you can imagine that my medium well (slightly pink) came out looking raw....my dad's "medium rare" looked even, how shall I say it? "More than raw?" So he sent his back. Josh's prime rib went back too.

 
After a long wait -- and my food going back again...this is what I was left with (see picture below) -- a pile of fat and, as Josh put it, "a greasy diner slab of meat." I burst out laughing when the waitress handed it to me and Josh said, "Are you kidding me?" She said, "Am I missing a piece?" My dad just rolled his eyes. Josh took this picture and asked to speak with the manager. He said he was going to threaten the manager with a posting on his Facebook page if something wasn't done to compensate us for our extreme distress and suffering. Lucky for them, it didn't get that far.

This was the "You've got to be kidding!" I had not eaten any of my prime rib..just cut the fat off and sent it back to be cooked properly. This is what was left when it came back the last time...of my 11 ounces.

 Long story short...after much pleading and cajoling and begging (we could see from our table) our very embarrassed waitress convinced the manager to come and talk to us. He didn't say much -- although he sort of agreed that our meat looked rather disgusting. So, he told us he wouldn't charge us for the meals....which he didn't.
We thought that was good...but we started laughing all over again when we opened our check and realized that he had taken off $75 worth of food - -but left Josh's $2.75 soda on the bill.
Something about that just seemed really, really comical.

Our very, very embarrassed waitress took that bill and refused to let us pay for it.

We wondered if it was an April Fool's Joke. Or if we were being punked. Maybe Ashton Kutcher was in the house and we just hadn't seen him yet.

I mean, seriously?!? Charge us for the soda?
(And yes, just in case you are wondering, we did leave the waitress a nice fat tip -- no pun intended. This former waitress knows that girl wasn't personally responsible for our cut of meat -- or for the clueless manager.)

It was actually a great story and made the weekend all that more fun. The only thing that would have made the weekend better was if I hadn't had to get up at 4am for my flight back to Cleveland and if my dad and brother hadn't had their flight back to Vegas canceled due to the fact that the FAA grounded dozens of Southwest flights.
But hey, what are you gonna do?