Ok God. We Got The Message.

Remember this joke?

There was a huge flood in a village. One man said to everyone as they evacuated, "I'll stay! God will save me!"

The flood got higher and a boat came, and the man in it said "Come on mate, get in!" "No" replied the man. "God will save me!"

The flood got very high now and the man had to stand on the roof of his house. A helicopter soon came and the man offered him help. "No, God will save me!" he said.

Eventually the man drown. He got by the gates of heaven and he said to God, "Why didn't you save me?"

God replied, "For goodness sake! I sent a boat and a helicopter. What more do you want!"


Well, Cody and I feel like that's our life.

It all started about two years ago when we went to Chili's and had the worst meal and service of our life. We had a gift card and were so excited about our special night out {this was definitely in our newlywed/even poorer than we are now stage, so a night at Chili's was a BIG deal!}

If I remember correctly, they messed up our order (I think Cody's mashed potatoes were ice cold), it took forever to get any attention from our waiter... we were so frustrated! We got some sort of comp as a make up for it that night, but it certainly left a bad taste in our mouth.

Fast forward several months later and we once again have a gift card and venture out to Chili's. We nearly flip when we see we're being seated in the exact same spot as the previous visit. The meal was better than the last time, but we still had some issues with our service.

Since then, it seems like every time we've gone to Chili's, we've had something go wrong. This week we got a coupon for a free chips and queso. We had a special event at school for Cody to get his official class ring, and then we headed out to celebrate.

There were a ton of cars when we showed up. Cody checked in, but said it would only be a 20 minute wait so we weren't too worried about it. We both made a few phone calls, but after I while I started getting antsy. Cody checked the clock and it had been 18 minutes since we checked in, so we figured they would be calling us shortly. All of a sudden, this group of four gets paged that has been waiting all of four minutes. Now I definitely know something is up. I grab Cody and we head inside to check on why we haven't been called. Once I ask, they tell me we were "called" 5 minutes ago and never showed up. We have to wait several more minutes until they finally get us a table.

We were a little frustrated about it, but sat down and probably would have gotten over it. Our waitress is chatting with the table next to us for a while before she comes over to talk our drink order. We give her our drinks, our meals and the coupon for the chips and queso all at one time. Right as we're finishing up, the table she was chatting with yells, "Hey we want fried cheese!" She laughs with them and says she'll get it out.

Five minutes later, she shows up with our drinks but no chips. A few minutes later, the fried cheese is delivered to the table next to us {funny side note about the table: it was a young couple, probably just dating. they seriously were holding hands across the table at every moment they weren't eating food. #truluv4eva} This perks me up, because it my mind, queso should not take longer than fried cheese. Our waitress is refilling another tables drinks and as she walks by, I catch her attention and ask where the queso is. She jumps and says, "Oh the queso! I'm putting it in now!!"

Finally, a few minutes later, our queso and chips show up. It's then we start noticing our waitress is spending a lot of time chatting with the table next to us. Any time she would walk down the row to check on her tables, she would then stop to talk to the group, so we quickly figured out they were good friends. We also wondered if one of them was an employee, because they were getting quick attention and service from everyone.

After enjoying our chips for a while, a man walks up with Cody's Big Mouth Bites. And nothing else. Apparently my face looked pretty shocked and he was smart enough to know that one meal was missing and asked what I ordered. A HOUSE SALAD. Seriously. Something as simple as a salad that is probably pre-made waiting to be brought out. Our waitress comes up a few minutes later and has my salad, but no apology for it being missing.

We're trying to enjoy our meal (over the unbelievably loud music) and we just start laughing at the obsertity of it. The chatterboxes next to us are getting all of her attention and we're getting nada. It's at the point that we are laughing about all of our horrible Chili's experiences and that's when it hits us:

God has been sending us a message.

Our first horrible experience.

Returning, only to be placed in the exact booth again.

Messed up orders and bad service.

A boat, a helicopter, a dadgum fireworks show spelling out the message: God doesn't want us eating a Chili's.


: )

There is a slight chance that it could all be coincidental and Chili's in Abilene just has frequently bad service. We got a kick out of it though and it will probably be a long while before we venture out to Chili's again!

{Cody did talk to the manager about our service. We were nice, saying we understand it was a very busy night and they had a lot going on, but felt like we got poor service/messed up orders because the waitress was more focused on our friend. The manager said he would talk to her about it... and we had to watch as he talked to her and then she came up to us and (looking rather sour) said, "Your bill has been taken care of." We both felt horrible, but yet once I thought about it, she didn't even apologize for the mess ups, which I think says a lot. So in the end... maybe all this poor service ends up being a huge blessing for us... we're getting lots of comped meals out of it!!!}