Things I Have Minor Issues With

Open Letter to the waitress at La Musa, Too Trendy For Me Restaurant:

I'm terribly sorry that I saw fit to return the steaming pile of fish that you placed in front of me, but it wasn't without great internal struggle. You see, as you neared me with the plate, even from far away I could tell that there was, of course, a head clearly attached to the fish. Your cook had thought to remove the innards, cutting a hole along the bottom of the fish and presumably shaking it up and down till they all flopped out; unfortunately he hadn't thought to remove much else. You said "This is so good!" and smiled at me happily. I hesitantly took the plate from you.

I realize that your cook is mad at me, and probably spit in and/or did worse things to the food that I asked for in place of the fishhead meal, but please understand the events that happened after you left our table. I felt forced to cover the fish head with my napkin, so his little eye wouldn't stare at me so cruelly, condemning my carnivorous ways. I pulled back the skin and scales, for yes, there were scales, and realized that I would be forced to navigate through his bones to reach the pulpy meat. My brilliant idea, Waitress at La Musa, was to pull enough skin off to cover his head. As I did this, my fish's neck(?) tilted back and exposed his jelly-like brains, cooked to perfection by the head chef, who is currently cursing me with expletives I have most likely never heard before in Spanish. After seeing my slain fish's brains, I decided to start from the tail, but a mouthful of fish bones harpooned my upper palate. At that point I decided to give up and to call you over, Waitress.

You were noticeably unhappy as I said, "Pretty please, I would like to change my order, or if that's not possible, just take this away because I can't eat it with the head staring at me." When you did return with a different plate of semi-edible meats, you informed me that the cook now hated me forever. I hesitate to admit that I rolled my eyes at you when you left. I rolled my eyes again at you when you told me, at the end of the meal, that I should never do something like that again, because it is VERY BAD; and you emphasized VERY BAD so that I could hear the capitals, even though I'm a foreigner.

So, I'm pretty sorry about what was essentially a gross afternoon for everybody involved.

Dean Allbritton
Former Customer of La Musa, Which Really Is Too Hip For Me