That’s us with the piles of food…

Vicky and I went out the other night because it was Vicky’s last night of freedom before teaching for another couple of months. Vicky’s teaching schedule gets so crazy – she tells me it’s because she loves it – that we knew it would be our last chance for a while, so…

Sunday night, we hit Bucca di Beppo because, well, I have a love affair with their spaghetti and meat sauce. We waited along with a hundred other people for a table – I was the idiot who thought they wouldn’t be busy – and were finally called up with another couple.

Is this how they’re seating people now? I wondered. Is this like a swing party but with food?

As it turned out, two booths had opened up next to each other. Couple #1 sat in one booth and we grabbed the other. Good… that would have been awkward…

As we perused the menus, the question came up as it always did: Should we order a small or large portion? For those who know Bucca, everything is served “Family Style” on a big plate so you can share. I love this because I’m a big fan of having a little of this and a little of that. We usually order the small portion, which turns out to be fine and we often have leftovers. But, with Vicky teaching every evening for the foreseeable future, I decided why not live wild for a change and get a lot of leftovers?

“Let’s get the large tonight,” I told Vicky. I ordered my beloved spaghetti with meat sauce and Vicky ordered the far less boring penne arrabiata.

And then, we sat back with our bread and Vicky’s wine and my soda and gabbed about school and work and writing and upcoming events until…

Enough food to feed a small army was laid out on our table! Two massive plates filled with pasta occupied our table like squatters and I could feel the eyes of the world turn our way.

“Good thing we wanted leftovers,” I announced, uncomfortably. It wasn’t bad enough that everyone in the restaurant seemed to be looking at us, my imagination was bringing in every starving child of the world.

Vicky didn’t say anything about how I was just pig enough to try and eat it all… but I could feel her thinking it.

We brought our leftovers home in industrial-strength tins, the kind they drop on starving nations out of modified bombers. As I carried them out, I thought about how some people must have thought we were pigs, while others just thought we were bad cooks.

Either way, I’m happy to stay home for a few weeks until the next time Vicky and I go to a restaurant and I embarrass us again…