Pysch 101 and 102 Doesn’t Prepare Us For Bad Potatoes

Many of us have had two semesters of psychology classes in college, but that didn’t prepare us for a lot of the craziness life throws at you. Supper clubs are usually pretty safe unless you run into a bad potato.

Bad Potato 101

I was once on a flight from San Francisco to Narita Japan. Dinner had been served in first class and then all of a sudden a lady a few rows in front of me started going off on the flight attendant. She was basically screaming at the poor attendant that she had been given a bad potato. She was going on and on at a very high pitch about her bad potato. It was pretty embarrassing for the other flyers. Then the senior flight attendant stepped in grabbed the guilty potato slapped it and said: “Bad Potato, Bad Potato”. To which the other people in first class started laughing and applauding in relief.

Bad Potato 102

A few years ago we were having dinner on a Friday night at the country club with a group of friends. One buddy had gotten there early and by the time our dinner was served he had been pretty significantly over served with scotch. This buddy who is affectionately called the “High Rolling Redneck” likes his baked potato piping hot. The reason he likes them hot is to melt his ten packets of butter. He is not a “Low fat” kind of guy.

The kitchen at the club bakes potatoes in an aluminum foil jacket and keeps them in a warmer. They are never piping hot. The HRR noisily complained to his waitress. The waitress went back to the kitchen and returned with another normally lukewarm potato. Well by now the Dewar’s was talking and the HRR lost it with complaints and ran into the kitchen to let the chef know about his dissatisfaction.

There was no appeasing the redneck that night much to everyone’s embarrassment. To his credit he did go back the next day and apologize to both the waitress and the chef. To this day the HRR’s bad potato is legendary. If he ever orders a baked potato his fellow diners are sure to remind him of past transgressions.

The moral of the story is that if you ever serve a baked potato at a supper club, makes sure it is served with a side of Prozac.

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and be on the look out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Morgan James Publishing published the Kindle-Version on September 5, 2017 and the hard copy coming out January 30, 2018.

Sometimes People Just Connect

The beauty of supper clubs is that people connect. There is nothing much more fun than socializing and connecting with people over a meal.

Sometimes in life you meet people and have an automatic connection. That happened to me a few years ago at a friend’s son’s wedding in Quebec City. I met Jean Avard, an uncle of the groom, at the rehearsal party and we just talked. For two hours straight. At some point our wives simultaneously asked each other: Does someone need to be rescued? They quickly came to the conclusion that we were just two peas in a pod.

We mostly talked about family. I knew Jean’s middle son Doomie from his golfing trips to Memphis. The first year I retired it just happened that Doomie and I were alone together on the golf course for three days straight. You get to learn a lot about a person playing an empty golf course in March. Doomie is a great guy and we just had fun. Jean got to tell me about his other two boys Charles and Philippe. How they were all different and unique. Most of all he made it clear how proud he was of all three.

I got to tell him about my undergraduate thesis in Canadian studies. My thesis was that the separatist movement in Quebec would go the way of other radical movements in North America and that over time it would be assimilated. From 1976 to 2015 I couldn’t have been more wrong. Montreal, in particular, is more French today than it was in my college days. Jean and I agreed that while I was wrong to that point, I have time on my side.

After the wedding Nancy and Jean hosted a brunch at their wonderful lake house outside of Quebec City. Jean got to show everyone the trophy 24 inch trout that he had caught. Truth was he wasn’t much of a fisherman, but he caught the trophy. I got to tell everyone about trophy deer bust that was hung at my grandfather’s lake house. My dad, not much of a hunter, had shot it. My cousin was convinced it was haunted. She would walk past it at night explaining: “Don’t be mad at me Uncle Eddy shot you”. Jean and I were just two peas in a pod.

Tragically, we lost Jean a few months after the wedding in a bicycle accident. Jean is gone, but his stories live on. Doomie and Estelle are expecting a new baby in a few months. My guess is that the baby will remind us of Jean and grow up to be a wonderful storyteller.

If a supper club can be a venue for people connecting, that is a good thing.

Living in Tennessee we don’t see a lot of Quebec license plates, but when I do I think of Jean: “Je me souviens” (I remember).

Kindle Version Of Impromptu Friday Nights is Now For Sale

Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs is now available on Amazon. It has been over five years in the making and the Kindle version is now available from Morgan James Publishing. Subscribe to the IFN blog and you will get a free e-copy of the book.

The Kindle version of “Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs” was published September 5th. So now do me a big favor and go to Amazon and write a nice review. The way it works is that the publisher uses reviews of the Kindle version to be printed on the hard copy that comes out in January. So the reviews you write may become part of Supper Club Immortality when the hard copy of the book comes out.

So what you need to do is:

– Go to www. Amazon.com

– Search Impromptu Friday Nights

– Click on Kindle Edition

– Scroll down to Write a Customer Review

Thanks

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and be on the look out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Morgan James Publishing published the E-Version on September 5, 2017 and the hard copy coming out January 30, 2018