hold the mayo...no, seriously, please hold it...

i am a picky eater.

this is not new information to anyone who knows me. there are all sorts of idiosyncracies that go along with me when i’m eating, especially when i'm eating out. among them: if i’m having meat (which is a rare occurance), i like it really, really well-done...as in, briquette-like. i don’t like ice in my drinks. i can’t do cole slaw, or pickles, or potato salad. at all. i’m finicky about condiments, preferring to add my own if i’m, say, having ketchup on something. and i do not want mayo anywhere near anything i’m about to eat.

which brings me to yesterday’s adventure in dining.

my mom, young beatrix and i decided to spend the day out shopping, and young beatrix was desperate to visit this quaint little family-run restaurant north of the city because they apparently make the World’s Best Butter Tarts. so, we added it to the itinerary and arrived there just before noon.

it was a really home-y place; a little hole-in-the-wall with mismatched plates and cutlery, decor that resembled a family rec room in the mid-1980s and plenty of friendly staff. the place was almost completely full when we walked in, so we figured that was a good sign. and right by the entrance stood a couple of large cooler/display cases showcasing all manner of tarts, brownies and assorted desserts. excellent!

we were seated and perused the (admittedly basic) lunch menu. mom decided to have the shepherd’s pie, young beatrix was going for the beef and barley soup with a butter tart on the side, and i opted for a BLT.

now, whenever i order any kind of sandwich at a restaurant, the first thing i ask about is mayo. lord, people LOVE their mayonnaise on sandwiches, but not me. i don’t want to see it, i don’t want to hear about it and holy hell i do NOT want to taste it. most restaurants *will* put it on their fare unless the patron (i.e., me) requests otherwise. and, on more than one occasion, even asking them to please skip the mayo doesn’t work and my sandwich (or burger or whatever) arrives with white goop lining the filling.

so, our amiable, 50something waitress – whom i wanted to call marge, because she looked like a marge – took our orders. when she got to me, the FIRST thing she asked was “do you want mayo on that?” i was delighted that she’d broached the subject and said, “no! thanks for asking! no mayo, please. just dry bread, thanks.” she wrote “no mayo” on the order slip (i saw) and off she went.

we waited a good 15-20 minutes for our meals. a different waitress brought us our food and placed each plate down. trixie’s soup looked hearty and good, mom’s shepherd’s pie had come in its own single-serve dish straight from the oven and was steeeeeeeeeeaming hot, and my BLT – on homemade bread – looked delicious.

until i saw it.

right there.

on all four pieces of bread.

MAYONNAISE.

dripping onto the bacon, the lettuce and the tomato.

*sigh*

i called the (second) waitress back over and, because i hate sending food back, said in as nice and friendly way possible, “i’m sorry, but i asked for no mayo and this has mayo on the whole sandwich.” then i lifted a piece of the bread to show her the offending eggy slop. she apologized profusely, took the sandwich away and said that she’d bring me another, but that it would take a few minutes. “no worries,” i said...but i saw the two women sitting at a nearby table give me the stink eye for daring to reject my BLT. whatever, ladies, i hate mayo.

so i sat while young beatrix and mom ate. both said their food was quite good. i continued to wait for mine. about five minutes later, the first waitress returned with my second sandwich. she put it down, apologized again and explained that she’d written, very clearly, “no mayo” on the order. “it’s okay, don’t worry about it!” i said. she left and i prepared to finally eat my lunch.

thing is, experience has taught me that in situations like this, some restaurants don’t really make you a new sandwich...they just salvage whatever they can from the first one and hope you don’t notice. so now i check to see what, if anything, has remained.

and, sure enough, they’d given me new bread, but just dumped the previous sandwich's ingredients – STILL COVERED IN MAYO – back into the second sandwich.

please, someone, tell me...HOW IS THIS BETTER???? okay, now the bread doesn’t have mayonnaise, but the bacon still does. and so does the tomato. AND the lettuce.

i sighed. mom offered me the rest of her shepherd’s pie. trixie offered me part of her butter tart. i called the first waitress back over and explained, this time in a slightly disappointed tone, that the kitchen had just slid the ingredients and their residual mayonnaise onto fresh slices of bread. then, again, i lifted the bread to show her the white clumps inside my BLT.

“i’m gonna kill them,” she said of the kitchen staff. “they’re not supposed to do that.”

no kidding.

by that point, trix and mom had finished their meals and i’d about had it with the idea of a BLT. i’d lost my appetite by then, and was skeptical about my future prospects, so when the waitress asked if i wanted them to try again, i just said, “no thanks.” she wondered if i wanted something else at that point. “no thanks.”

so, my “lunch” consisted of a coke and two crackers. oh, and the butter tarts? trixie liked them, mom said they were meh...and i tried a blueberry-crumble variety, which was AWFUL.

[as an aside, you will note that even in the stock photo of a BLT i have included with this post, there's mayonnaise on it!]