The Medicare Lounge

I hate chain restaurants. For some reason, I find the mediocre food and staid interior decorating of large national chains beginning with T.G.I. or ending with Garden, repulsive. I guess I feel that when you go out to eat you should either know you’re getting really good food, or you should try something different. You shouldn’t know for certain you’re getting mediocrity. What’s the point?

I do make one exception: the local chain. Local chain restaurants tell a story. They describe where you are, what the people are like, and what the people around you like to eat. I find them fascinating. Whenever I go anywhere, I always try to visit at least one local chain. Even when I go home to Columbus, I do the same.

So now I’m home for a funeral (see previous blog entry) and my mom decides to take my grandparents and visitng great-aunt out to dinner to get them out of the house.

My mother announces, “C’mon, we’re going to the MCL.”

I can barely contain my excitement about this! The MCL Cafeteria is a Columbus, Ohio institution. They serve a heart-healthy, cafeteria-style menu in a pastoral, nursing home-like setting. They cater almost exclusively to the elderly. I haven’t been to the MCL Cafeteria since we took my great-grandmother 10 years ago.

It’s only 4:30pm and already the evening is shaping up to be full of entertainment.

By the time everyone is ready to leave it’s 5:00pm, pushing our arrival time to 5:30pm. Damn, we’ve just missed the busy dinner hour, which is of course, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm.

We’re living life on the edge, eating late, taking no prisoners.

Using my grandparents’ handicapped sticker, we manage to find excellent parking. As the three over-80 year olds attempt to climb out of my mother’s SUV (this takes 15 minutes) I notice the parking lot resembles a Buick dealership, with the occasional Lincoln Towncar and Cadillac sprinkled about. Not the new fancy Cadillacs featured in many a rap video, but the Eldorados and Coup DeVilles of the previous millennium. The boat-like variety my grandparents own.

As we enter, we’re met with a sign advertising several new options to the menu.

Try Our New Teriyaki Pork Loin*!
“This is the best Teriyaki Pork Loin I’ve ever had!”
-Robert from Pataskala
* (Heart-Healthy Menu Item)

“Hey look here, New Teriyaki Pork Loin. That sounds good, huh?” says my grandmother, upon reading the sign.

“Robert from Pataskala seemed to enjoy it.”

“Quit being a smartass!” says my mother, while hitting me upside the head.

Sadly, I wasn’t even being a smartass.

Okay, maybe a little. It did look good; I just didn’t feel that “Robert from Pataskala” was a viable spokesperson. I don’t even know him. He’s not the mayor, or even the mayor’s grandmother. Why should I care what a random 85-year old man from Pataskala, Ohio thinks about the pork loin? I mean, what are his credentials?

But it worked on my grandmother, so I guess it was effective.

After collecting my tray, I begin reviewing the menu items. The menu is posted in gigantic lettering in two places to give everyone and their grandmother many opportunities to read it. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s a cafeteria, so everything is laid out in front of you. You simply look and point to what you want. From there any one of the several minimum wage-earning, but highly patient high school kids serves it to you over or under the sneeze guard. The whole operation runs quite smoothly, with the young employees patiently shouting to the hard-of-hearing customers while gingerly handing them plates of boiled sole, mashed potatoes, and D-Zerta Jello.

For those of you not in the know, D-Zerta is a brand of low fat, low sugar, low ____, gelatin.

Yes, I looked it up. No, I did not try any.

Since I’m the first one through the line, I go find us a table. After searching the pastel colored, wide aisled dining area, I settle on a large table by the window, away from the speakers playing beyond smooth jazz. The artwork on the walls makes me think sadly of Bob Ross’s untimely death. I wonder if he would eat here if he were still alive today. What would he think of the bucolic scenes on the walls? What was the artist’s inspiration? Has the artist tried D-Zerta?

By now everyone has joined me at the table and the conversation begins. My grandmother is simply raving about the pork loin. Apparently, my skepticism of Robert from Pataskala was unfounded.

My grandfather points out that at age 28, I’m the youngest one in the restaurant. As I gaze at the sea of canes and walkers lining the dining area, it occurs to me that if I weren’t here, my mother would win the youth prize at the ripe old age of 61.

I glance out the window to see an Urgent Care Clinic directly across the street and a Sunrise Retirement Community next door and think this is the most brilliant location ever conceived.

My thoughts are interrupted by my great-aunt.

“Blanche, I never thought I’d see the day…”

“What do you mean, Beverly?” says my grandmother.

“Well, I never thought I would see the day when you‘d be as big as you are now. You used to be so thin, remember Brenda-Carol?”

“Yeah, Aunt Beverly. Everyone gains weight, as they get older. I used to barley be 100 pounds. Now I’m a size 6!”

“Not me,” says my great-aunt. “I’m still as thin as when I was a girl.”

“Well, Beverly, you’re not well! If you weren’t as sickly as you are you could probably keep some weight on. But with you being ill all the time it’s no wonder you’re so thin.”

I could barely contain my laughter. You see, this was all said in the most pleasant, loving, Mid-Western way possible. It was almost as if my great-aunt was merely astonished that my grandmother was now a size 10. And my grandmother retorted with nothing but concern over my great-aunt’s various health issues.

Who’s the smartass now, Mom?