A Bottomless Pit

One of the absolutely best parts of planning a wedding is taste testing food from various restaurants. In fact, I highly recommend grabbing a friend, a coworker, an ex with whom you hope to rekindle your love, or a stranger off the street and showing up at establishments to try out their cuisine for your upcoming wedding that will eventually get mysteriously called off, or, hey, you never know… These places will roll out the red carpet for you and bring you multiple helpings of one dish. ​"Excuse me waiter, will you bring me more of the mac n cheese. After my hundredth bite, I still can't tell if I really like it." In total, we visited five places that gave us the same kind of go around. However, one caterer stood out to all of us, but not all for the same reasons. 

On one particular fall evening, my entourage (the fiancé and the mothers) and I made our way downtown to Raleigh's famous barbecue restaurant, The Pit. My mom had traveled eight hours to meet up with Bobbi Sue (names have been changed, but the pseudonyms definitely reflect the true identity) with whom she had been corresponding for weeks now. Upon our arrival, we were told that Bobbi Sue no longer worked for their company but had been replaced by a woman named Mim. Now, James has often told me that I can be quite  timid, which I will admit that my nature tends to lean a bit on the meeker side. Standing at 5 feet 0 inches and clocking in at barely over 100 pounds, I know how I would fair in an altercation, and I am using whatever defense mechanisms I have to avoid one. It's a wonder that I ended up teaching at a high school. With that being said, outspoken, ostentatious, towering people intimidate me. Not because I place little value on my self worth but because these people could easily crush me just by sitting on me. Just like Buster Bluth's school's motto of "Children should be neither seen nor heard", I tend to put this principle into practice whenever thunderous human beings grace my presence, especially those in the wedding business. 

With that being said, Mim came flying like a bat out of hell to greet us and usher us to our seats. The woman was tall and loud! For the next hour or so, our taste testing became the Mim Show. She ordered that we get real china plates instead of the plastic kind that look like china. She pretty much demanded that I hire a "bodyguard" to move guest away from me after the wedding ceremony as if talking to these petty people for a mere five minutes would ruin the whole wedding. She blabbered the whole time while I rolled my eyes to myself at each of her so called suggestions and advice. However, I never uttered a word of objections, for I knew my companions would never agree to this absurdity. 

I was wrong, for something more powerful than Mim was in control of their minds or, rather, their stomachs. They were under the influence of The Pit's reputable, delicious food. With each taste of the pulled pork and each bite of the soul rolls, they became weaker and weaker until, before they knew it, Mim was no longer a loud, obnoxious woman clamoring on about the Perfect Wedding and jacking up the original price by nearly 50%, but instead she was a floating Beef Brisket with an angelic glow around her, singing hymns of a soft, sweet melody that went like this "Choose the Pit. Choose the Pit. Choose the Pit." They had succumbed.

Nevertheless, Mim was fired and so was the next girl after that. By that time, we were in a bottomless pit (pun 100% intended). We were caught between excellent food and poor service with little time to change caterers. In the end, Mom threw out her superb negotiating skills and landed us a deal and some comps with The Pit, so we had excellent food and excellent service. Sometimes, it pays to be patient and timid just as long as you have very not timid people to back you up.