Acadiana Dinnerzaster

We started Saturday by heading to Festival International bright and early. We got out there in time to have a beer and a sandwich before the music even started blaring from the stages, and by 1:00, Kolya was covered in the juice of red snow cone melt. Come to think of it, I had one shoe full of red snow cone melt too.

We continued with a fun day – drinks, music, craft tents – all that good stuff. In the early evening, it started to drizzle, and we headed out.

Festival Face

On the way out of town, I mused, “If we weren’t filthy, I’d say let’s go down to New Iberia for that place with the soft shell crab poboys that are so good.�

This peaked Mrs. theskinnyonbenny’s interest, but I didn’t know the name of the place, whether it was open at night, or whether they even had soft shell crabs right now. (Once, I went there and had to settle for an oyster po-boy. Poor me.)

But she was determined, and after a few minutes on google, I confirmed a picture of the place (whose name I still don’t know). A quick call confirmed openness and availability of the crabs, so we turned right instead of left, and were off for an adventurous dinner.

When we arrived, I handed the kids off and dashed into the bathroom. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny stood at the front counter, and as soon as she opened her mouth to order, she felt warm urine running down her side. Baby K pretty well soaked the side of her shirt, and had enough left over to leave a puddle in the front room. But that wasn’t the end of our puddles; not at all.

I came back to the table after a diaper change, and Vanya and Mrs. theskinnyonbenny were seated with forks, napkins, and drinks. As I pulled my chair up to sit, my elbow knocked into the table. There must have been one excited instant where my elbow was moving at 50 miles per hour, and at peak speed, the collision with the table occurred.

The impact was enough to knock over two full soft drinks, so ice and liquid gushed everywhere. In short order, an employee showed up to mop, while I used napkins to brush ice and liquid into a giant trash can. This process took forever.

About that time, a stranger passed behind me and said, “Excuse me, I don’t know if you’re aware, but you’re bleeding.� Sure enough, my elbow was moving fast enough to break skin, and in the process of wiping up ice, I had smeared blood along the back of my arm from shirt sleeve to mid-forearm. There were even a couple of puddles near the edge of the table near me. I guess that’s where I rested my elbow to reach across to the far side. So the table cleanup continued.

The fan of shame blows under the table.

Finally, the mop girl felt like her effort was good enough. She explained that they would get it better after they close, and they moved a fan to the floor to blow beneath our table and help it dry out.

If you think you have a mental picture of all of this, remember that we came into the restaurant filthy, filthy, filthy.

My final laugh of the trip was watching Kolya and Mrs. theskinnyonbenny share a catfish box. Baby K wanted it all for himself, and would slap his mother’s hand away when she would reach in to get a bite. He did it over and over and over, and it made me laugh harder every time. I finally pulled out my phone to get a video of the greedy little shit, but he decided then to be nice about it.