ORGANIC FOOD

One thing I have in common with the rest of humanity, is the love of food. Recently, I visited my daughter on the North Side of Chicago...She lives in Wrigleyville, near the home of the Chicago Cubbies. There are strange shops, drunken young adults, and over-priced restaurants all over the place. It's like the place where Pinocchio went, when he was a bad boy...Las Vegas, for wooden heads, or something very close to it. Anyway, I wanted to take her to lunch as a way of thanking her and her husband for some beautiful Persian rugs, they were giving to my wife and I. After we loaded the carpets, into my utility vehicle, she brought me to an organic restaurant. I expected a nice place with an "organist", who would play dinner music for us...just like at the ball park! What I got was an overpriced menu, with strange entries...I knew this was going to be the lunch from hell. I thought I would be safe with the organic hamburger, but it had the consistency of a soft hockey puck, and it probably tasted like one, although I never did make it a habit of tasting hockey equipment. The healthy burger had no grease running from it, which is a bad, bad sign...There was no fat in the damned thing, and the taste was totally unremarkable, or rather non-existent. The tasteless, healthy slice, of cheese, I had to special order cost me another buck. Even my beloved Heinz Ketchup was organic. I never thought Heinz could stoop so low! My daughter ordered some rabbit food, (a salad), and had little cups of strange looking cheeses, that looked like curdled milk. The cheeses had all kinds of exotic names...I was afraid of botulism! All of our waitresses were pierced and tatooed. They had dark circles under their eyes. They were not vampires, because it was around noon-time. I guess I watch too many "True Blood" episodes! These waitresses reminded me of Holocaust survivors, or anorexic females I have seen from photos, in various Medical Journals. Sitting next to me was a hip, urban mom with a thousand dollar perambulater and two precocious, blonde-haired, little girls. These "sweethearts" were around 3 or 4 years old. They kept themselves busy by kicking my leg, spilling things, and shrieking like cockatiels through the entire meal. The mother of these darlings smiled contentedly at them, and offered me no consolation. So much for Dr. Spock. I wished I had a copy of his book, so I could administer some good, old-fashioned, parental guidance...but alas, this is shamefully, politically incorrect, these days. I grinned like a macabre, monster through this whole disaster. My daughter entertained herself by text messaging her friends, and in between, spoke of the wonders of "hot yoga". Oh well, I was happy to see my kid, and I would take a bullet for her, so this wasn't too bad. The total cost of my adventure, including two meals, tip, and feeding Mayor Daley's parking meter, came to around fifty-bucks. I waved goodbye to my little girl, (28 years old), as I headed back to the Western Suburbs. I hit gridlock on the Eisenhower Expressway at Austin Avenue. It took me an hour-and-a-half, to arive at the local Mc'Donalds, by my house in Wheaton. Man was I hungry! I ordered three, double-cheeseburgers! For three bucks, I was in "hog-heaven". I smiled as the grease dripped out of the sides of my mouth. Now, this was a hamburger!