Now after you’ve filled up on hamburgers and hotdogs at all those 4th of July picnics and cookouts, it’s time to discuss a real American tradition.
The Italian (sort of) restaurant, The Olive Garden.
That’s right. What’s more American than the Olive Garden? It should be apple pie, baseball, Glenn Beck, and frozen food wonderment at the Olive Garden! We accept this don’t we? Sure we do. Next time Billy wants to go outside and get in a game of catch right before dinner, he should really just start throwing blocks of frozen pasta across home plate to get the momentum going. He can rename that curve ball the Ravioli Twist! No seriously. The Olive Garden. Have you been? It’s like a pasta lobotomy. Do you know why? Ok. Here’s why.
The Advertising
Bonjourno! Benvenuti! Shut it! You guys do know that you’re not in Italy, that you’re actually located in Paramus, New Jersey, right? Seriously. What’s with the “When you’re here you’re family” crap? No. When I’m there, I’m a customer who doesn’t want to be seated too close to that party of fifteen having the too loud birthday party wherein you will sing some rhyme-y song causing the drunk ones to join in. Yes, that’s what I am. A customer who wants to eat my manufactured pasta-like meal in peace. Yet, your advertising tells me that I should ride over to your establishment on a gondola while twirling a mustache. I’ve never had as much fun as you advertise in a place that just served me un-frozen food. Not ever. My mom and I aren’t giggling about the breadsticks. My dad didn’t just give me a new car over a plate of ravioli. And I have no interest in having a gynecological visit with my waiter. It’s all lies. Just microwave those little plastic packets and pour my dinner into a bowl and try not to convince me that fresh “cheese” or fresh “cracked pepper” doused on top will somehow make my food, uh, fresh. Capice?
The Wine Shilling
Yes, I see all your wine bottles. Yes, they are wonderfully, strategically, and in your mind, unobtrusively placed. It clearly isn’t a statement that, “Yes, we serve wine here.” No, it’s more of a “Hey, you, person with money! Yeah, you! We serve wine here! Buy some! Don’t worry if it tastes like urine-tinged toilet water! Buy it!” It’s okay though because I actually don’t want a glass. Cue needle skip. Um, uh, yeah, that’s okay isn’t it…you know…that I don’t want any wine? The waiter stops in the middle of telling me all about their scrumptious, “We make our own Italian wine” and I’m like, “Where? In the Italian vineyard on the Garden State Parkway?” and he laughs, “Oh, no. But you know it’s really real Italian.” Um, okay. In the case of really, real Italian…I’m still like no. And like a flash the waiter grabs the wineglasses off the table as if it were some sort of punishment. Like taking the wineglasses away is the water torture moment of the Olive Garden experience. We expect a little goblin to appear to lead us to the basement where wineglass flogging will commence. Is it a coincidence that your sodas are always flat after refusing Olive Garden wine surely poured from the golden anus of an ethereal grape located in Jesus’ own vineyard? Not likely. You can keep your Principato wine jug to yourself, thanks.
Salad and Breadsticks
Whenever you talk about Olive Garden the first thing out of most people’s mouths is, “Oh, but they have salad and breadsticks!” And I’m like, “REALLY?! Like actual bread and lettuce and everything! Like yeast and dough, and mayhap a random olive! This is so exciting. I need to sit. It’s not everyday a restaurant procures bread and salad. I may need to phone the president. Or at the very least Paula Abdul.” Sorry. But I don’t understand the “They have salad and breadsticks” argument. Now, if they told me, They have salad, breadsticks, and a cure for working 48 hours a week…then well, I’d be sold! Salad and Breadsticks for everyone, everywhere, always! But no, the salad and breadsticks are just a precursor to a mediocre meal outing where some lady is talking about her bunion surgery at the next table as she complains that “They always give you so much sauce at this place. I’ll wake up later with heartburn burning down to my kneecaps, just you watch.” Fantastic. Can the Salad and Breadsticks help us not hear that?! Can it? No? Okay, then shut it about the salad and breadsticks.
The Olive Garden Play-Doh Pasta Factory
Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti. Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti with shrimp. Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti with chicken. Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti with sausage. Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti with a white wine cream sauce. Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti with meat sauce. Stuffed, Breaded Pastachetti…all the time, always….until…Stuffed, Breaded Pastanoochi is introduced. Stuffed, Breaded Pastanoochi with shrimp. Stuffed, Breaded Pastanoochi with chicken. Stuffed, Breaded Pastanoochi with sausage.
Never Ending Pasta Bowls
Let me just say up front that I don’t condone never ending anything. Not hotdogs. Not pancakes, and certainly not pasta. How much pasta-y, starchy, sauce can someone really eat before becoming a large piece of rolled dough? I’m thinking just one plate or bowl. More than that and you should just eat it in the ER. There’s really no reason ever to sit down to never ending pasta. Would you like your insides to congeal into one large undulating mass of bloated artery? Are you attempting to create your own personal internal lasagna? Just cut you open and noodles fall out? It’s crazy. Stop this. The world doesn’t need never ending bowls of pasta. What is this a Dr. Seuss book?
It Belongs to the Masses
Despite everything mentioned above, and the fact that an outing at the Olive Garden is like a loud, screeching, food bastardization filled with wine, pasta, and discussion of hang nails and jail sentences…you won’t ever stop people from going there. Have you seen the lines in this place? It’s like the pasta is part of a traveling circus. You just can’t wait to see what incredible recycled reincarnations they’ve come up with now. And without fail if you’ve got a relative traveling from out of town and you’re at a loss for where to take great aunt Ethel…nine times out of ten if you suggest The Olive Garden she’ll say, “Oh, they have wonderful salad and breadsticks!” (face-wall) so you’ll be stuck waiting for your frozen pastachetti, while listening to the birthday “We hate you. Hurry up and eat your ice cream so we can clean your table.” song being sung at the table next to you, and someone…probably you, will ask for more breadsticks because apparently this is what you do here, and finally maybe just maybe you won’t think about all the cheese and sauce you’ve just ingested, and maybe just maybe your stomach will remember the sacrifice you made to give great aunt Ethel a good time at 2am when it starts to say Bonjourno! Benvenuti! to your intestines.
You Won’t Get Out Alive
So there you have it folks. The Olive Garden is a fascist regime intent on getting you drunk on their swill, stuffing you with bags of pasta, while whoring salad and breadsticks as a way to get you in the door. (Look at that waitress mocking us!) It’s the first hit of marijuana, the gateway drug to mediocre Italian-esque food. They know what they’re doing. They’ve already claimed the old people! Who else do you think is buying all that soup and bread! It’s up to the rest of us to resist. We won’t though. We just won’t. The old people are strong. They have weapons like guilt and advanced age. We’ll just do what they say. There’s really no point. We’ll all be enslaved….surely, but we have to try. When they find us thousands of years from now, the only trace of humans living in the Americas will be the word Pastachetti scrawled on an abandoned building. Resistance may be futile. Excuse me…they’ve just introduced New Carbonara Ravioli with shrimp and chicken…the Revolution is nigh.
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