These Rolls Aren't Right

242 words. Letter to the editor.

I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since the pandemic shut everything down in early 2020. I hope to do so soon, but I got out of the habit of eating out and so I haven’t done it yet. However, the possibility must be on my mind because I had a very strange dream last night. It left me with a wish to complain to the management, but since it happened in Dreamland I thought I would instead just put it out into the world in hopes that doing so will prevent this happening in real life.

In the dream, I was at a restaurant that is famed for its soft, steamy rolls and its sweet sweet butter. I will O’name no O’names. The server brought our drinks and took our order and so we sat back to await the rolls and the sweet butter. Our food arrived, but no rolls preceded the entree. I asked the server to please bring us a basket of rolls. She obliged, but instead of rolls the basket was full of orange peels. Not orange slices, but just the peels, with obvious teeth marks in them from whomever had consumed the flesh of the fruit.

I summoned a manager but I awoke before he/she/they arrived.

I do look forward to my first post-pandemic foray into an eating establishment, but I must say I’m a bit wary. Perhaps it is just jitters. Let us hope so.

-30-

This work was published in The North Platte Telegraph on June 13, 2021.

This work was published in Billings Gazette on June 13, 2021.

This work was published in The Lewiston Tribune on June 15, 2021.

This work was published in The Daily Star on June 15, 2021.

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.