Herban Sprawl

On Saturday, Benjamin Franklin turned 303. He’s only 245 years older than me. I like to honor him on his day because it’s mine, too! Anyway, the celebration continued into Sunday, when we were invited to brunch at The Country Club.

A little background is in order. I have no use for The Country Club, nor any other country club. It goes back to a time when they discriminated against any and all who did not meet their idea of social equality. Tellingly, when one of the country clubs in my home town began to suffer financial setbacks, they invited my parents, by then prosperous, to join. My mother snorted, “The only reason they want us is that they’re broke. If they weren’t broke, it wouldn’t matter how much money we had, we still wouldn’t be good enough. They can go to hell.” My father echoed that sentiment, and indeed, much to my amusement, BubbaDoc, a wealthy guy, said it best: “I have nothing in common with those people.”

However, the maternal unit in this varied constellation, was in arrears with her food minimum and by joining her for brunch, we’d ease this a lot. That’s the only reason I agreed to it. Truthfully, she doesn’t have any business maintaining a full membership, but that’s a topic for another time.

The days when companies paid for their executives to belong to the exclusive clubs in town are long over. It doesn’t stop a number of them from belonging, but the expenditures are less generous than they were when the good old expense account covered the food and bar minimums. Indeed, our paper ran some very revealing statistics when The Country Club was in a huge financial bind - they had a big fat payment coming due and no money to cover it. That’s when their membership rules got relaxed, and they aren’t kidding a soul about it.

The food was not good. The nut bread was some kind of prepared food service stuff, and the mini muffins likewise. Probably frozen stuff. The hash browns were still chilly from the freezer, not having had enough time in the chafing server to warm all the way through. The eggs were powdered, just like in a college cafeteria. They did have a chef making omelets, and that was the only thing that was fresh, aside from a little bit of fruit.

I made the mistake of being surprised by the cold spuds out loud and our hostess was duly apologetic, but hell, she hadn’t made the things. She should have been just as peeved, after all, this exorbitant food minimum for a single lady, was costing her pretty penny.

This is the second time I’ve eaten there, and the second time I have been completely disgusted with the food. Even in the days when they had more serving people roaming around than guests, the food was lousy. But I guess rich people will overlook bad food just to belong to something exclusive.

Even if I were a millionaire, I can’t see me bothering with such an institution. I really do have nothing in common with those people. I won’t return to a restaurant that doesn’t serve good food.