Discouraged at Portillos
9.14.2008

Oh rain. How we can never be truly happy with your quantity: so often we beg for more or we beg for less of you. We humans are truly hard to please. It rained all weekend starting on Friday. The sky could not have been more gloomy. And so I ate bowls and bowls of soup at Panera Bread Company all weekend because that is what felt most appropriate. So tonight, Candace and I ate our soup and then hungered for something chocolate. Something decadent. Something that spent a fair amount of time baking in an oven in some recent history.

We sped over to Portillos whose chocolate shakes and chocolate chocolate cake with chocolate frosting is to die for. As we pulled in, something was absolutely not right. I sped in close to the building. Closed: due to flooding . The shock and disappointment was not only bottled in our car but the car next to us. The gentleman in the passenger seat of the red minivan rolled down his window to share his condolences. "It's a sad day. Flooding. Who would have thought?" He shook his head in true bereavment.


As we sat pondering our next locale, we watched a woman charge up to the door. She had not noticed the strange emptiness of the parking lot and apparently not the massive CLOSED sign posted on the door. She pushed and pulled the locked door and then ::action:: disappointment, shoulders slumped, frown. So that is how we spent the greater part of this Sunday evening- watching people rush from their cars toward the door only to express physical and sometimes gestures of horror, saddness, hunger, and disappointment. Narrated by Candace.

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