Never eat steak at a restaurant
2002-11-24, 12:52 a.m.

I've got a headache. Poo. Headache's are icky.

I went to my teacher's small little concert at a cafe in Miami Beach. My parents and I left the house at 8:35 (we had to pry my dad away from the Harry Potter movie on tv) and made it there at 9:15. What a long drive!

We were greeted by Mr. Barron, my teacher, and we chatted for a few minutes. He turned around and signaled to someone to approach us.

"Allison, I'd like you to meet --"

"Drew?"

"Oh, so you know eachother?"

"Well, yea."

"Hey, Allison," Drew says with a smile. "Surprised to see you here."

"Yea. Me too." He smiled again.

"I'm going to go back to my dad now." He points to do table in the back of the cafe next to the stage.

"Ok. Seeya."

That's all the conversation we had tonight.

The concert didn't get started til 9:00, so my family bought drinks and ordered Calamari as an appetizer.

It's too bad I didn't know what Calamari is.

The waitress brought out a large plate with fried thing-a-ma-bobbers with what-looked-like legs sticking from all directions and fried onion rings. In the center of the plate was a small cup of tomato sauce. I, being an open-minded person, take a leggy thingy, dip into the sauce, and put it in my mouth. Big mistake. I forced it down and then gulped down some Sprite.

"What is this?" I ask my dad.

"You don't know?"

I examined the stuff more closely. Tentacles. It had tentacles! "Squid! Ew!"

"I take it you don't like it," he said with a laugh. I gave him a glare and decided to try the onion rings.

It wasn't onion. Squid. Again. I gulped it down with some more soda. Ickitty ick.

Dinner finally came as the concert started. Steak. Rough, hard-as-a-rock, burnt-as-hell, might-as-well-call-it-crap steak. Ick.

Mr. Barron and his group played a song. I forgot the title... Started with an R... Reflections? Dunno.

After the song was over he introduced the band and some people out in the audience that worked for him.

"And this song was dedicated to one of my students," he continues. "Everyone clap for the highly gifted floutist, Allison W! Stand up, Allison!"

Everyone looked in my direction and clapped. I blushed, stood up, and quickly sat back down.

That was so embarassing! Jesus! I'm not even a "highly gifted floutist [flutist]" for god's sake! Drew saw me! GOD, THAT IS JUST EMBARRASSING!

While I was standing, I noticed Daniel, a fellow floutist, sitting at the table next to Drew. Great. That's just wipes my embarrassment away.

The concert continued, blah blah blah. When it was over, and I had finally given up on trying to cut the damn steak, I walked over to my teacher to tell him how wonderfully he played.

"Did you notice something about my flute?" he asked.

"No," I lied.

"You didn't?"

"Well, you were a little flat."

"I knew it! It's hard to tell in these kinds of situations." He then gave a long explanation about how he'd rather be flat than sharp anyday and whatnot. "So did you enjoy yourself?"

"Yea. You were great. The band was great."

"I'm glad."

He then started introducing me to people. I don't remember who they are, nor do I care, but hey, they were nice people.

Finally I went and sat back in my seat. Drew passed by and smiled and waved goodbye as he headed out the door. That boy is going to tease me so badly come Monday.

I'm dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead! Daniel's going to tease me, Drew's going to tease me, and I'm so goddamn embarrassed.

Shoot me now.

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