MinnieBall1 said:
I bet it's gonna be hard to get a bowl of grits up there. :hatsoff:
Hard? I almost had the cops called on me when I asked for grits at an IHOP in Springfield, MA in 1984 !!
We were up there going through the Smith and Wesson Armorer's Academy in March when they shut down the Academy a few hours early because 14 inches of snow was coming down. So we got take out and went back to Westover AFB, where we were staying in the Hostess House. Next morning, they had "closed" Westover because of the snow.
I had the Sergeant who went with me get up early to get through the snow and get to class on time. I looked outside and there was 4 to 5 inches of snow on the ground and asked if they had closed the gates to the Base? They hadn't. I told my Sergeant these folks were used to snow, so off we went. We made it to the Academy in plenty of time, BUT the whole parking lot had 5-6 feet of snow drifted in it. However, there was a trench dug out to get in the school door. We had to park on the street and when we got close, a Security Guard informed us the Academy was closed for the day. OK, major change of plans.
We found an IHOP open and decided to get Breakfast. When the waitress asked me what I wanted, I told her I didn't know the number of the breakfast was; but I wanted coffee, juice, two eggs over easy, a slab of ham, buttered wheat toast and grits. When I said "grits," her eyes got big and she got huffy and said something about my language and she asked me to repeat my order. I did. When I got to "grits" again, she stomped off in a huff saying she was going to get the manager.
I looked at the Sergeant and asked if I had said something wrong and he told me not that he heard. So here came the manager saying something about if we could not control our language, he would call the cops. I told him we had not used bad language and were just trying to order breakfast. So he said he would take the order. OK, went through the whole thing and when I got to "grits," he went off. Finally I realized he might not know what grits were, so I asked him. He said he didn't and I said it was a breakfast food something like Malt-0-Meal. Well, he didn't know what that was, so I said, "OK, you know what Cream of Wheat is don't you?" He said he did. Then I told him it was sort of like that, but made out of hominy corn instead of wheat. Then he got confused and said they didn't have anything like that. I said, "OK, then how about Hash Browns?" He said he had that and off he went to put in the order.
I had a wry look on my face and looked at the Sergeant who was shaking his head. His home town was Horse Pens, VA and of course had also grown up on grits. The only thing we could come up with was maybe the Waitress and the Manager had thought I had said the word for a female dog instead of grits? At least the food was OK and we got out of there without further incident.
Gus