In baseball, when a team has six quality starting pitchers
and they can only fit five into their rotation, they call that a “First Class
Problem”, meaning it’s a problem based not
on insufficiency but on over-abundance.
You can never have too much pitching.
When you do, it’s a “First Class Problem.”
I am fully aware that today’s story is the financial version
of a “First Class Problem.” The money is
available, so it’s not “My God! We’re in
the Poor House!” But for reasons,
grounded more in temperament than in circumstance, it remains, nonetheless, an annoyance.
My apologies if this rankles. I am myself
no fan of “My swimming pool turned green” or “My Business Manager lost me a
bundle” stories. Whining about affluence
is hardly an endearing characteristic.
But you gotta write about happens to you. How can you possibly write about what
didn’t? Oh yeah, fiction. Well, I don’t do that. Not due to morally superiority. I just can’t get away with it.
“While marlin fishing in the Caribbean…”
“You don’t fish.”
“You got me. I don’t.”
Okay, 187 words of groveling disclaimer.
And now the story.
One Sunday midmorning, Dr. M, myself and our daughter Anna
take a ride to Beverly Hills, to avail ourselves of a semi-annual sale at an
upscale clothing store. (At which, as is
apparently inevitable, four of the five items I choose to purchase are not actually
on sale. There’s a reason stuff goes on
sale. Nobody wanted it. Including – as reflected by eighty percent of
my purchases – me.)
Our shopping completed, it is now time to decide about
lunch. A number of options are floated, none meeting with enormous enthusiasm. Then Dr. M suggests the “Polo Lounge” at Beverly Hills Hotel.
Anna immediately jumps at the idea, as she had recently
lunched at the “Polo Lounge” with her co-workers (as a treat, not a habit) and
had luxuriated in its “Old Hollywood” sensibility. During that lunch, she had in fact spotted
four bone fide celebrities: Bob “Full House” Saget, Kelsey “Frasier” Grammer,
Jason “Seinfeld” Alexander and David “a lot of stuff” Spade. (Celebrity-hungry visitors take note. Always happy to be of service.)
The last time I had visited the Beverly Hills Hotel was to attend a Larry Sanders Show “Wrap Party”, more than fifteen years earlier. The encounter before that involved a couple’s
“weekend getaway”, where we were escorted to the tiniest hotel room I had ever
seen. When I (uncharacteristically)
complained about its minisculity, I was informed that Robert Kennedy had once
stayed in that room. To which I replied,
“When? When he was four?” We were subsequently provided with a larger
room. Located directly over the hotel’s rumbling laundry.
Now, back to the Present.
I knew we were in trouble when we were handed our menus, and
I read, centered at the top of it, the dreaded descriptive:
“Brunch.”
I am no enthusiast of “The Brunch.” “Brunch” involves a set price with – if it’s
not a “Buffet Brunch” – a limited number of selections, though even a “Buffet
Brunch” is not on my “Happy List”, because it obligates you to load up on food
– often mismatched food such as lamb chops and blintzes – to offset the
exorbitance of the “Brunch”, which, in the case of the Beverly Hills Hotel “Brunch” was – are you sitting down? –
Sixty-seven dollars per person.
Where do they come up with that price, I wonder?
“Sixty-five dollars.”
“They’ll pay
more.”
“Okay, sixty-seven.”
Believe me, if I had remembered it was Sunday, I’d have rapidly
nipped this suggestion in the bud.
Sunday, traditionally in almost all L.A. fancy restaurants, is “Brunch
Day.”
I study the menu, struggling to elevate my order to anything
close to the value of inflated “Prix Fixe”, which is impossible, but I
try. I order the “Fruit Plate” appetizer,
which I would normally order as a main course but I on this occasion order as a “starter.”
Why did I do that?
Sixty-seven dollars.
And for my Main Course?
I eschew the “Challah French Toast” which I would otherwise
have snapped up. Why?
Sixty-seven dollars.
(For French toast?)
I pass on the “Grilled Chicken Paillard.” Why?
Sixty-seven dollars.
And I select instead,
The ”Steak Frites.”
Which I would normally never
have ordered – especially the “Frites” – but I did so that “Sunday Brunch” because…
Sixty-seven dollars.
And for dessert?
I rarely eat dessert.
But I selected the “Peach Cobbler.”
Why?
Everybody?
“Sixty-seven dollars.”
Thank you.
We actually requested one dessert for the three of us. Despite the waiter’s almost tearful pleading
we order individual desserts, because
“They’re included.”
The man desperately wanted us to get our money’s worth. So I compromised.
“One ‘Peach Cobbler’”, I instructed. “But put a dollar in it.”
The food, to be honest, was quite tasty, the outdoor
ambiance delightful – an arboreal setting, no mosquitoes (For me, an outdoors
with no mosquitoes is the meteorological equivalent of the seedless watermelon),
and a lively but non-intrusive three-piece ensemble. The experience overall was remarkably elegant.
And I did not enjoy a moment of it.
We ate “Brunch”, we paid the bill – Dr. M handles all restaurant
bills, so I do not blow my top seeing the prices – and we left. Full of stomach, but (considerably) lighter of
wallet.
And wouldn’t you know it?
We did not catch sight of a single celebrity.
(Except for a “Real Housewife Of Miami.” But, I mean, give me a break! Marilyn Monroe lived in that place.)
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