The Colorado Springs Hillbillies

I always feel so out of place at those fancy restaurants you can go to--you know, the ones where they have little towels in the bathrooms to wipe your hands. Sometimes I wish, as I get all dressed up, that I was more at ease in elegant worlds. But here is a tale to prove that the Blase family (my portion of it, at least) does not belong in a 5-star restaurant.

For my going-away family dinner, my parents took us to a high-end dining room restaurant at The Cliff House, a historic hotel in Manitou Springs.



The little restaurant was probably the size of the inside of a gas station corner store. The four-person tables were covered in pure white linens and dishes, dishes, dishes! Appetizer plates, bread plates, wine glasses, water tumblers, salad forks, entree forks, coffee spoons, dessert spoons, bread knives and cutting knives...probably enough dishes and silverware to stage a production of "Be Our Guest"! Of course my sister managed to promptly knock one of her knives onto the floor within seconds of sitting down.

I knew that the evening had started rolling in Blase-style when my sister (yes, two fellonies in a row!) pulled her retainers out of her mouth and set them in a pool of drool on her appetizer plate. Of course, leave it up to her to pull a stunt like that. What's so great about just two daughters is that you never know which one will pull a ditz-stint first. I would have been more likely to trip while maneuvering around the table to my chair or knock my water over, while Margie would (obviously) blatantly signals to all watching that we don't often visit high-end restaurants. (Oh, and she also managed to spit some ice on the carpet as well.)

After all this had passed, I remarked, "This is why we don't go to fancy restaurants very often." Little did I know that the fireworks hadn't even started yet.

Now, I'm going to tell the following event like how it happened from my perspective. Then I will follow it up with the explanation.

We had just finished our entrees (I had elk ravioli--yum!) and the waiter asked Dad if he wanted more wine. My dad says in a slightly posh, prissy way, "I am so done." This evoked a hearty laugh from our waiter and after he left my sister and I began mimicking Dad with even more prissiness: "I am SOOO done!" Dad, realizing that what he had said was a bit comical, decided to try to back himsef up. So he says, "I'll make up for it" (the prissiness, he was implying) and, as if it was just waiting to jump out of his mouth, emits a short yet very pronounced belch. At any other restaurant we wouldn't have reacted the way we did, but you must understand that in the middle of this tiny, fancy restaurant--with about six other people present to hear it--I couldn't have imagined anything more apalling. Our entire family spend a good minute shaking from silent laughter as we covered our eyes with our hands, not daring to meet the eyes of anyone around us.

Our waiter, poor fella, had to come refill water for a family laughing hysterically over something (thank the Lord he wasn't there when it happened!). We tried so hard to contain ourselves, but it was next to impossible. Turns out, the sound dad let out wasn't really a burp. He had been trying to make a manly little roar thing but ended up choking and it was just a high-pitched...yeah. So poor Dad's face is beet red (matches well with his red beard and hair) while he chokes and laughs himself to recovery.

It can safely be said that if Margie isn't spitting ice or throwing utensils and Dad isn't belching, I am most likely feeling very out of place in a fancy, fancy restaurant. I love the occasional visits to such establishments, but our family just isn't high-end. And I'm so glad.