My Diet

Friday evening, I ate out. This is pretty normal for my weekend activities, and I didn't have anything of interest in the fridge, so it was also necessary. For most of dinner, I was enjoying myself immensely - I had good food, good company, and speedy service. For awhile, all was well. Then, as the waitress came over to refill my drink about halfway through the meal, she looked down at my plate and said, and I quote, "You go girl!" She laughed, too. Now, as a female and a human being with feelings, I don't really like it when people comment on how much I've eaten. I especially don't like it when they seem awed my how much food I've consumed. And, to best convey my upset, I should probably mention the name of the "restaurant" now. This didn't happen at some sort of swanky place only visited by anorexics and low-carb addicts so that you understand why the wait staff isn't used to people finishing their meals. This happened at IHOP! IHOP, people - as in THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PANCAKES! Don't you think they've probably seen people actually drink the syrup there? Sure, I may have been eating something called the Pancake Combo, but it was incredibly economical. And, I may have asked for both chocolate chip pancakes and bacon strips, but I hadn't eaten all day. Plus, at the risk of beating a dead horse, isn't this IHOP? Isn't this one of the few places one is free to eat beyond all normal standards of what is healthy and/or gross without repercussion? (IHOP and The Cheesecake Factory, right?) Short of ordering pure lard rather than butter or heavy cream on my buttermilk short stack, is there really any request I can make that the IHOP hasn't heard before? The next time the waitress came back to refill my diet coke (let's not dwell on the irony here), I could barely look her in the eye. With a few words, she had taken my meal from "highly enjoyable" to "full of shame." I don't think my self-esteem has been the same since.