shab-LISS

Restaurant servers say funny things sometimes.  Like one time, when we were skiing in Utah, we had a waiter who also skied. He told us he would be in the Olympics one day and we would know him because his name was Kraft. "Like the cheese," he said.

We asked him what the soup du jour was and he said, "I don't know. It changes every day!"

Another time, we were having dinner at a Red Lobster. We were doing so in memory of an acquaintance who had died a year before. He used to treat us to dinner at Red Lobster, mostly because he could eat his own weight in lobster on all-you-can-eat night. He was a nice man and we always remember him when we see a Red Lobster.

On this night, we asked the waitress about the wine list. She recommended the Chablis but pronounced it shab-LISS. We laughed behind her back about the mispronunciation but it stuck. For the past I-don't-know-how-many years, we've pronounced Chablis as shab-LISS.

Then, one day very recently, we went to lunch at a nice restaurant near our town's hockey arena. It's in the clubhouse of a golf course and not only does it have good food and a nice wine list, it has amazing views from its outdoor patio. Without even thinking about it, I ordered a slab-LISS with my meal. 

The waitress said nothing but no doubt she was laughing behind my back.

I deserved it.

 

Smooth

We went to see Iliza Schlesinger perform recently and I ended up sitting next to a college student from Kansas here on Spring Break.

She asked whether we had seen Iliza before. Wanting to seem cool and hip, I told that we had adding that we also had tickets to see Leno the following night.

"Leno?" 

So much for cool and hip. 

I mentioned Leno again the next day to a young waitress, this time asking if she was familiar with him. She said, "I'm not a fan but I'm sure I'd know their music if I heard it."

The last time I saw Jay Leno was probably in the 90s. As in, the previous century. While I saw him on a college campus, I think the kids are into someone else now. To be fair, his crowd was rather geriatric. Iliza's crowd was definitely younger.