The Unvegan

After a vicious night of partying, nothing makes me happier than a grilled cheese with bacon. This desire has only increased as I have gotten older, so after my most recent mess of an evening, some friends and I made a Sunday run to Swinger’s in the Mid-City area. Swinger’s is like diner, but slightly better because they have grass-fed beef and all that jazz. After waiting about 15 minutes for a table, we were finally seated. I took a long look at the menu, which was possible because of the long wait for our waitress and only found Grilled Cheese with Bacon on one of their daily specials. Unfortunately, that day was not Sunday.

After waiting a while, our British waitress (yes, I could definitely distinguish this accent), who had chosen to wear a scarf despite the 70 degree weather, came over. I decided to go against the menu and order the Grilled Cheese with Bacon and fries just to see if I could. Without batting an eye, she accepted my order and moved on to everyone else. Perhaps I would be in luck.

The wait for our food seemed to last an eternity. This could have had something to do with us all being wildly malnourished from the night before, but I still think it was a damn long time. No one had ordered anything too complex and although the restaurant was full, the place isn’t so huge that the kitchen should have been backed up. Eventually our waitress brought us our orders and my face lit up like I had discovered manna from heaven. But when I saw my plate, I realized I had entered my own little private hell.

My sandwich had been place upon a demonic pickle. Although never welcome on my plate, a pickle can sometimes be forgiven if it hasn’t touched my food. In this case, though, my food had been totally pickled. The grilled cheese on the special made no mention of pickles, so I didn’t think I had to order it without. I pulled the grilled cheese off of that green demon as quickly as I could, but it was too late, the juices had fully infiltrated my grilled cheese. This was a disappointment, and I ate my grilled cheese with a fiery hatred in my heart. The half of the grilled cheese without pickle juice was only slightly better, being quite dry and sparsely populated with cheese and bacon.

Swinger’s had almost completely failed me. The one area that it didn’t fail me was in the fact that the food filled me up. This was necessary for the morning, but little consolation after giving me bad service and tainted food.