Tonight I had dinner at a Ruth’s Chris Steak House for the first time. What an excellent meal. I tried to go there last night and it wasn’t open yet so I found somewhere else to go. I’m glad I waited, because last night I certainly was not dressed for the place. Today I went to the restaurant right after working at the hospital. The place is an a la carte menu where everything outside of the entree is an add-on. It is expensive and I broke my company budget for the day but the meal was worth it. I ordered a petite filet and jumbo shrimp. The meal came on a sizzling plate of butter salt and pepper. The atmosphere was very nice, fine music and soft lighting.

And then other people showed up… As Derek says, “This place would be great, except for the people.” I was there all by myself and then a late aged couple came in and since I have the world’s most fantastic luck they were seated right next to me. The couple, I’ll call them Horace and Lenore and proceeded to let me know everything that was on the menu and the story about Ruth’s Chris Steak House and how the name came about. I also had the pleasure of hearing how much everything cost and Horace’s discovery that this restaurant was an a la carte one. Oh Horace and Lenore weren’t talking to me they were just talking so loudly and complaining that it was like I was seated right at the table with them. Why can’t people just sit down and shut up. Or try and keep their conversations to themselves.

I was also subjected to my other favorite pet peeve the open mouth chew. And since it is my favorite pet peeve I was able to hear with excellent clarity each chew of Lenore’s open mouth as if her mouth was one inch from my ear. Which was the case yesterday while I taught some people from the hospital. Two women spent two hours straight talking and rapid fire gum chewing that sounded distinctly like hyena’s tearing apart a wildebeest. And since we were huddled around the computer their open mouthed chewing was inches from my ears. By the end of the day I felt like I had been the test subject of a sadistic experiment on dissonant sensory stimulation overload.