A Visit to Madame Claude's (standard:humor, 567 words)
Author: Michael Gates	Added: Oct 06 2003	Views/Reads: 3764/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A 12-year-old Burger King fan visits a French restaurant.

Never take a 12-year-old boy to a French restaurant (unless he's
actually French). My wife thought it would be a good idea yesterday to 
eat lunch at Madame Claude's, a little Gallic eating place tucked away 
on a grimy side street in Jersey City. She wanted to go there because 
some of her friend's art was hanging on its walls, as part of the 
annual Jersey City Artists' Studio Tour. (I won't go into why 
restaurants are included in a studio tour--because I don't know why.) 

When we entered, I noticed that there were no other children present,
just a lot of people who looked more like they should be on the Left 
Bank than in post-industrial Jersey City. I heard a lot of foreign 
accents, more Russian than French, I think. We had obviously stumbled 
across the local center of intellectual expatriate life. I suddenly 
felt like a tourist in my own town. 

A very French waitress showed us to a table and gave us menus. 

There was indeed a lot of artwork on the walls, and my wife promptly got
up and went around eyeballing it while standing over people's tables to 
get a close-up view. Being much too self-conscious to do that myself, I 
opened the menu. No pizza. No hamburgers or hot dogs. Fine by me, but I 
could tell that my son, whose favorite restaurant is Le Roi de Burger, 
was going to go hungry this afternoon. 

The waitress came back to take our orders, but I could only shrug and
gesture helplessly toward my wife, who was still interrupting 
conversations here and there as she sidled up to each table and stared 
at the wall. 

Actually, none of us were particularly hungry, so when she rejoined us
we decided to skip the meal and go straight to the dessert. I decided 
to order a fruit crepe. "What's a crap?" my son demanded to know in a 
loud voice. I imagined all the Euro-yuppies staring and snickering. 
"It's sort of like a big Pop Tart," I hissed. "Now keep your voice 
down." 

He decided, after perusing the Franglais menu, to order the only thing
he recognized: a glass of lemonade. When it arrived, he was surprised 
to find that it actually was what it purported to be: a drink freshly 
squeezed from real lemons, not the frozen, sugar-sweetened facsimile 
he's used to. "This tastes awful," he said. 

My wife suggested he add some sugar to it and try again. After dumping
in half the sugar bowl and maniacally stirring the drink--ice cubes 
clinking loudly--for several minutes, he decided it was drinkable 
enough to take a few sips. 

"I want to go home," he announced in a loud voice, just as our crepes
arrived. "Just be patient," my wife advised. "Want a bite?" 

He made a face and repeated that he wanted to go home. "Look at that," I
said, pointing to a mechanical fish sculpture that hung over our table. 
"What do you think of that?" 

The fish machine had a crank attached, and my son reached up to turn it.
The fish's tail swished back and forth and its head bobbed up and down. 
Despite the turning gears, it was remarkably quiet, and he amused 
himself with it while we wolfed down our crepes. 

We paid and left. I'm sure they weren't too sorry to see us go. À
bientôt? Non. 


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