Read Short Stories To Tickle Your Funnybone for Free Online

we
have that in our wine cellar, sir.” He stuck his nose
in the air.
How can you have eight pages of wine and
not have Arbor Mist? Go figure.
Maggie came to the rescue. “We’d like a
bottle of your house chardonnay,” she said.
“Very good, ma’am,” Rolph replied. He
bowed and walked away.
I might as well share some of my other
idiosyncrasies. I am neither poor nor uneducated. I
didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I’m a simple
guy. I
come
from a
middle class, blue-collar
background, but I have made a comfortable life for
myself.
One of my pet peeves is the affectations of
the wealthy. They irritate me and, in my humble
opinion, are a real pain in the butt.
Maggie knows me well, and I thought I
saw a smile cross her face as Rolph and I did our
verbal thrust and parry. She would have to be on
her toes this evening.
Just then, a busboy arrived with a woven
basket of bread.
Hot dog.
Now we were getting somewhere.
He
laid the basket on the table
then
produced two small platters and a jug that was
filled with some viscous liquid that resembled
thirty-weight motor oil. He sprinkled some green
stuff on the platters and proceeded to pour the
Quaker State on top. “For your bread, sir,” he said
and bowed.
That was not how I was accustomed to
lubricating my bread.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a pat or two
of butter back there, would you?” I asked.
“Very good, sir,” he replied, bowed again,
and headed off to the kitchen.
I opened the cloth cover of the breadbasket
anticipating warm, soft yeast rolls. Yikes! It might
as well have been a basket of hockey pucks. In my
mind, I could see Mel’s Texas toast. Thick slices
of soft bread lightly buttered and grilled to a
golden brown and served piping hot to your table.
Dream on.
Have you ever tried opening one of those
things? A hammer and chisel should come with
them as standard equipment, and if you do manage
to
penetrate
the
outer
shell,
crumbs
are
everywhere. I tried, and sure enough, crumbs were
everywhere. No sooner had my roll exploded in
my lap than Rolph approached with a tiny silver
dustpan and a tiny whiskbroom.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said and proceeded to
whisk away my crumbs.
Just think of all the labor they would save
by serving soft bread. I wondered if they had a
suggestion box.
Soon Rolph returned with our bottle of
wine, a bucket of ice, and two glasses. He set one
glass in front of me, and with the skill of a surgeon
he whipped out his corkscrew and popped out the
cork. Gotta hand it to old Rolph. It came out in
one piece, and he didn’t even need the Black &
Decker.
He poured about one swallow in my glass
and stepped back. I thought, “ I paid forty-five
dollars for that bottle. I ought to get more than
that!” Then I noticed that he hadn’t poured even a
drop in Maggie’s glass.
I looked at Maggie. She grinned at me,
nodded her head toward the glass, and said, “How
about you give it a taste and make sure it’s right
for us?”
“Oh, right!” Maggie saved my butt again. I
tasted, and Rolph waited formy response. “It’s
okay,” I replied. “But it’s sure no Arbor Mist.”
Rolph turned and walked away.
He returned with menus.
“What’s good tonight, Rolph?” I asked.
Just friendly banter with the waiter.
He
stiffened. “Sir, everything from our
kitchen is good.”
Well, okay
then. It was really
just
a
rhetorical question.
We studied the menu. When I say studied,
I’m serious. You’d have to be fluent in three
languages to read the thing. “Do you know what
any of this stuff is?” I asked Maggie.
She shrugged her shoulders, and frankly I
was relieved when she said, “Not really.” I hated
being the only dummy.
Rolph returned with order pad in hand and
looked expectantly in our direction.
Maggie spoke first. “I’d like a shrimp
cocktail and your house salad with creamy Italian
dressing, please.” Maggie had been watching the
calories, so I didn’t know if her order was weight
watching