What's the Purpose of Reservations?

Okay it's Saturday late afternoon and my girl Lightweight calls me up. She just got back in town and wants to go out to eat. I had already made plans to go to this get together of a coworkers at 7:30 and then meet up with Intrigue#5 to go and eat. I really didn't want to go to my coworker's in the first place, but you know how it is sometimes you have to do a little politicing to keep the workplace livable. So I tell Lightweight that we can meet up with Intrigue#5 after I come from my coworkers. She said that she would find us a place to go. I was like cool - one less thing I had to think about.

So as I'm sitting in the corner of my bed trying to figure out what I'm wearing(cause I was going to my coworkers house first and then out to possibly meet mybabydaddy) the phone rings. It was Lightweight, she had found a place and wanted to know what time to make the reservations for. I told her 9 pm. She calls the place while I'm on the other phone listening. "Hello, MoBay." Lightweight, "yes I would like to make reservations for three at 9 pm." Mobay, "okay what's the name?" Lightweight, "it's Lightweight.". MoBay, "okay you are all set. Bye." Cool so we chat for a few more minutes and hang up. I call Intrigue#5 back and tell her to be ready for 8:30. Okay cool.

So I'm still trying to figure out what the heck to put on. I finally think I find something and proceed to put a little makeup on. My cell phone rings - okay who can this be. It's a homeboy I just recently reconnected with from junior high school. Anyway we are shooting the breeze and laughing. Basically yall know what happen - it's 8:00 and I'm nowhere near ready to leave my apartment. "Oh well sorry coworkers you won't be seeing me." I finish my conversation with ole boy, whom I'll call Chi-man. I finish getting dressed. Mind you I change my shirt at least 8 times, so I have to now clear my bed. I call Lightweight and tell her I'm on my way.

I pick up Lightweight and have her call Intrigue#5 when she gets in the car. So we are finally off to MoBay's. The traffic is flowing - thank goodness cause I'm hungry as hell. But of course there are the drivers on the road that can't drive. I just don't understand the problem - I have my lane and you have yours - STAY IN IT!

We find the restaurant - no problem. Find a close parking space - no problem. Get up to the hostess desk - problem. They claim they don't have our reservation. Oh no how could this be. I heard Lightweight give the guy her name. She even spelled it for him. How can they loose someone's reservations? This was new to me. Thank goodness Lightweight was talking to the hostess cause I may have been so calm. The wait was 30 - 45 minutes. We decided to stay because by the time we would have gotten somewhere else and found parking it would have been a half hour. I wait inside as my two compadres wait outside. There was another group of women after us. Now all except one seems awhight. But WHY is there one chick dressed all wrong - with white capris on with a tank top and a shiny Baby Phat jacket and wedge sandals on. Now it was nice out Saturday night but not that nice. I mean she was really pushing the seasons. She knew it too cause my girls came in telling me how she was outside talking all loud about this was how they dress in the Caribbean. When they told me that - my thought was (which I think I said out loud) - well go back to the damn Caribbean especially with that outfit. I just wanted to sit down and get a drink. It had been a long week and I need a drink.

We get seated finally and our waiter comes by and says he'll be right back. Right back turned into 10 minutes. We had to ask another waiter to please ask our waiter to come back. We get our drink orders in and he is ready to take our orders for our meals. Lightweight pick the Jerk Chicken with white meat- great choice or so we think. No white meat for the Jerk Chicken. Oh okay no problem - dark meat then. I proceed to order the Brown Stew Chicken - oh by the way no white meat for that either. What? How can there not be any white meat chicken? Intrigue#5 order the Fried Chicken - of course - no white meat. Okay I'm getting pissed off. I ask the waiter, who by the way has a thick African accent (I'll get back to that in a second) how can this be that there isn't a piece of white meat for any menu item. He says to us, "you have to get here early with the white people." Now ain't that some issh! The Saltines done ate up all the white meat. Racism alive and well even with chicken. Damn. Okay we settle our order dispute and wait for the waiter to bring our drinks over. Lightweight asks him so what's your name? He tells us Fortune - as in fortune cookie. I was thinking to myself, "okay what kind of issh is going here and what is that his stripper name? He can't be serious." Lightweight then asks where in Africa are you from? He tella us Namibia. We grill him some more as to what is his real name and why does he call himself Fortune. He was nice to elaborate (shoot he better had, his tip depended on it) for us. His birth name is Muningaodu which means loosely translated - Forutne. Aww how nice. He was flirting with Lightweight the whole time. She had me and Intrigue#5 laughing when I told her he was an African Prince like in Coming to America. "Hell to the no he ain't. " she said.

Just when we thought the night was getting better there was a band that had been playing all along. The lead singer/guitarist who was old enough o be my granddaddy started talking instead of singing (which he did poorly). He was saying that people could leave a tip if they liked for the band. Then before anyone could do anything this fool leaves the area where the band was and started walking around the restaurant with a basket asking for money. I couldn't believe my eyes. What the hell - "Has he lost his mind!" When he got finished with the table next to us he just looked our way and mumbled something under his breathe (which probably stunk). He know better then to come to our table cause he was getting a cent. All I was gonna give him was advice to give up trying to sing. This man messed up every song he sang. He was making up words, humming through parts, awful just plain awful.


The only redeeming quality about the restaurant was that our waiter ended up being nice and the food was very good. I would maybe go back; earlier the next time to better my chances of getting white meat for my chicken choice. But I had a good time hanging with my girls.