Bad Roberta and the Fancy Restaurant

Bad Roberta and the Fancy Restaurant

You would think that Bad Roberta's parents would have learned by now that they should never take her with them when they went out. But, if they left her home then no babysitter was willing to stay in the house, and who would watch Gerald? Also, Bad Roberta got into so much trouble when they left her home that they liked to bring her along where they could keep an eye on her. So one night, when it had been a very long time since they had been able to go out, they decided it would be nice to have dinner at a restaurant. They got a neighbor to babysit Gerald, and they took Bad Roberta with them. They went to the nicest restaurant in town, an Italian place called Gino's Classico. Big mistake!

At first, Bad Roberta was very well behaved. Of course she tripped a couple of waiters and played with the sugar packets at their table, but this was normal stuff that any kid might do. Bad Roberta's parents began to think that they might have a nice evening together, and they even started thinking that Bad Roberta might not be SO bad after all. Bad Roberta's parents began to relax. Even bigger mistake!

When the first course came, she struck! The first course was salad. Bad Roberta had ordered hers with French dressing because of the disgusting color. At the table behind her sat a lady wearing a white dress. When no one was looking, Bad Roberta dumped her salad down the lady's back.

"Aaaaaaaa!!!" screamed the lady, as she leaped into the air. This caused her table to tip over, and barbequed shrimp mixed with fettucini in a light cream sauce spilled into the lap of her companion. He screamed and jumped up too, because the fettucini was very hot, and he bumped into a waiter who was passing behind him. The waiter was carrying a tray with food for five people. The five people got their food all right...on their heads! One lady got a plate of spaghetti and meatballs in her hair, and some oysters went down her dress. A man got a face full of beans and macaroni, and some of the pasta went into his pocket. Another man was completely drenched with cream of mushroom soup, and lightly sprinkled with stuffed mushrooms and little sandwiches. He was so mad that he picked up a roll soaked in gravy and coated with bits of mushrooms and threw it right at the waiter who had spilled the food on him. The roll hit the waiter right in the eye: "splock!" The waiter, a college student with a lot of food-fight experience, bent over, picked up a quarter of a cantaloupe delicately seasoned with spaghetti and meatballs, and threw it at the man. The man ducked, and the cantaloupe hit a woman behind him right in the hair. She reached behind her, grabbed a handful of chocolate pudding, and threw it at the waiter. The chocolate pudding broke up in the air, and tiny bits showered about eight people, but not the waiter, because he ducked behind a fat old man who received the brunt of the pudding bath. From there it quickly degenerated into a general food fight, with half the people throwing food, and the other half running for the door, bent over in hopes that no food would get on them. Few of them made it out of the restaurant unscathed, because Bad Roberta had poured a slick of mixed salad dressing and raw vegetables from the salad bar all over the floor in front of the door. Food was flying all over the place, getting on the walls, dripping down onto the floor, splatting all over the plate glass windows, in people's hair and on their clothes, and even on the ceiling. People walking by outside stopped to stare. Some took pictures. Others laughed and pointed.

Bad Roberta's parents were hiding under their table, and only a few small bits of food hit them. "Look dear," Bad Roberta's father said once in the middle of the food fight, pointing at a pile of disgusting slime on the floor, "there's our dinner!" Then someone stepped in the slime, slipped, and went sliding out of sight across the room. "Shut up, dear," Bad Roberta's mother replied.

Finally everyone calmed down. Everyone in the whole restaurant had some food on them, and some people were completely covered. No one remembered how it got started except Bad Roberta and the lady in the white dress. However, the lady was hysterical because she was covered with salad, marinara sauce, shrimp, ice cream, pudding, spaghetti, and several other things, so she couldn't tell anyone what she knew. Bad Roberta's parents suspected that Bad Roberta was responsible, although they hadn't actually seen what she did. They snuck out to the car and stopped at the drive-thru window of Popeye's on the way home.