The Olive Garden incident

Major Stink around the Olive Garden
Journal Entry: Tue Nov 30, 2004, 1:31 PM
Okay now stop me if you heard this one before-

We went out toOlive Garden yesterday to celbrated the birthday of one of the receptionists at the publishng office where I work Lunch was enjoyable as free meals often are, and as Greg, MaryAnn, Carol, Herbie and my self started to walk back to the car we came upon a small "creek of sludge" I would use the word river but it wasnt flowing very fast. Anyway this brown sludge was bubbling up from next to the restaurant through the rocks and flowing over the sidewalk and pooling under a car near mine. I was mystyfied by the coagulated mess and it took a couple seconds to comprehend what exactly it was. Seems that the recycled greese (that I'm sure Olive Garden generated gallons of each day) had become backed up from it's underground storage facility.

It was sputtering from the ground like raw sewage from a septic tank, and as it flowed and cooled it was forming it's own cave like mass of stalagtites and stalagmites. It was rank and smelled much like you would expect for a mess of this type. As we the four of us were standing there admiring the sight, I heard Carol say "Herbie watch your step!" As I turned to my left I saw Herbie shuffle past me and proceed to try and forge the Vile river. As soon as his foot hit the topmost oozing layer of the stuff I saw him began to loose his footing and head downward. I reached for him which caused me to firmly plant my feet in at least 3 inches of the "stuff" in an effor to keep him from bustin' a 70 year old hip. I failed in preventing him from landing on his right ass check and splattering the crap over our feet and two foreign compact cars parked nearby.

As I hauled him to his feet, and checked for broken bones I realised just how putrid it all smelled, someone fortunatelyl ran inside to notify the employees of the going-on's outside. We asked for a towel to mop the stank off of poor old Herbie but before Iany of us had a chance he had already planted his butt in the backseat of my Pathfinder, spreading the love to my upholstery and floor mats. I coerced him out of my car and began cleaning him off as best as possible with the aged yellow rags that had been thrust at us from the side kitchen door of the restaurant.

The ride back to work was a tough one with us both laughing about the incident and trying to keep from loosing our collective lunches over the terrible stench that now enveloped my poor SUV. Even after half a bottle of 409 and a roll of paper towels the smell hadn't dissipated from inside my Nissan. I decided that a trip to the "Auto Spa" would be the only way to expunge myself from the ghost of deep fried past. Trish the sister of the girl whose birthday we had been celebrating took it upon herself to contact the Olive Garden and make sure they would cover all cleaning related costs involved with removing the event from out memories. I just returned from dropping the "Stank Mobile" off at the Cobblestone Car wash off of Alma School, and the tears coming from the eyes of the men entrusted with the Exorcism of the smells from my car has me nervouse that come 5 O'clock the spectre will still lie within-

Hopefully No More later....