Tonight I had the experience of eating dinner with 5 teenage girls. Or preteen. 7th and 8th graders. Not sure what age that makes you. 13ish? Wow. Loud.
We went to the extremely exciting world of the Hibachi Super Buffet. The Stupor Buffet. First of all, the place kind of puts you in a trance anyway. It is like the Walmart of buffets. Everything is there. Salad - greens and toppings and slaws and jellos and fruit and etc. Fried - wings, egg rolls, spring rolls, dumplings, chicken nuggets, shrimp, mini corndogs, wontons. Chinese - soup, beef brocoli, mixed "seafood", sweet and sour, general tsao. Japanese. Hibachi and sushi. And macaroni and tacos and meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Then chocolate fountain and fruit and cake and ice cream and candy. See? Stupor buffet.
I was accompanied by the five young ladies who had saved up their chips - spending sparingly in the chip shop and working hard to earn - to go on the Fearsome Foursome Adventure: eat at a foreign food restaurant. (secretly I was hoping for Thai...maybe in the Fall) Since all five of them are friends I stretched the Foursome to a Fivesome. And it surely was an adventure!!
I'm not sure I was as loud as a teenager as some of them could be - but I'm sure I shared some of the characteristics of each of them. Cautiously I will share observations of each, no names - and there's a little of each in all of us, I think. One young lady was clearly excited about the outing - you could see a little extra care in the clothes, hair. And she embraced the diversity of the spread.
One young lady especially embraced the opportunity to try new things. She did eat the whole piece of sushi! And she ate a little bit of raw salmon. I was impressed.She was high energy and she enjoyed being part of the circle as much as the food.
The young lady who sat across from me managed to get past the ick factor of my sushi to ask about what was in it. She ate mussel. And she ate a pretty good size piece of raw salmon.
The fourth is no stranger to varied foods. I think that someone in her house has encouraged her to try things. She ate several pieces of sushi. She showed me a pic on her phone of a great looking stir fry that she had made last night! She's a bit of a foodie. I love that.
And then there's a diamond in the rough. She's a little loud and not always well-mannered - but she's so incredibly vibrant! She laughs without reserve.
We were sort of accompanied by Mom and Dad. We needed at least two adults in the church van to satisfy our Safe Sanctuary guidelines. Just a good idea anyway. So Dad drove and then he and Mom ate at a separate table. The girls were able to just relax and we were all able to laugh and talk. And we practiced being polite to our server and not to frighten fellow patrons. We may not have been successful at the 100% of the time, but the seed was at least planted. Joslyn was patient and attentive and got a big old tip.
It was a bit unplanned - we had not been able to set a date, conflict with this schedule or that...and on Sunday I got a text from one of them asking about going that day. I was tied up so I asked her to check and see if everyone could go Tuesday or Wednesday. I didn't hear anything till a call about 3:30 this afternoon - I got my spare chaperones and we just did it.
Probably best.
And it was really a great evening!
But my ears are still ringing!! :)
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