Overhearing conversations in an Orlando Mellow Mushroom
Feb. 18—Author's note: I told a more bedraggled version of this tale in the pages of The Itawamba County Times many years ago, but I felt it was relatable enough to share with a new audience. I hope you enjoy.
As soon as the patron at the table next to ours opened her mouth, I knew dinner was ruined.
"It's so good to see you," she said.
It wasn't so much what she said but the volume at which she said it that was at issue. She squealed the greeting at the top of her lungs, as if her approaching friend had at some point requested help in being made deaf.
Her friend probably offered some greeting in return, but I couldn't be sure because she said it at a normal volume, and it just kind of blended in with the rest of the din of the busy restaurant.
But the speaker — and I'll just call her Lady Loudmouth of Castle Noisenstein, or LLCN, from here on out — was having none of that. No, her words were important, the stories they held too great to meld with the masses. She would be heard.
"How have you been? What was the traffic like? Was the traffic bad? The traffic on I-4 can get so crazy? Was it so crazy? It's crazy! How have you been? I've been great! Happy birthday! Oh my God, it's so good to see you! Happy birthday! I got you this present! I haven't seen you in, like, forever! No. No. No. I wanted you to have it. I wanted to. I wanted to! How have you been? Things have been crazy for me. So crazy. Blah blah blah."
I may have exaggerated that last part slightly. Very slightly.
If Mandy and I weren't such social weirdos, I suppose we could have asked our server for a change of tables. But this was a Mellow Mushroom in Orlando, Florida — the world's most beloved mid-tier pizza chain in the world's most beloved novelty town. The joint was packed, and making a fuss about our seating to an affable, hardworking server just isn't our style. Suffering in stunned silence, that's more our bag.
Unless she could manipulate time and space, I don't think LLCN's friend was involved in the conversation beyond smiles and nods and intermittent nonverbal vocalizations. LLCN was clearly a rare breed of human who had mastered the ability to inhale as she spoke, negating the need to pause.
Which, I suppose, is a useful skill for one who has not a single moment in her life too mundane to skip detailing at length. Mandy and I were treated to what seemed like LLCN's entire history, from the moment she emerged from the womb to when she walked through the door of this particular Mellow Mushroom. She wove a tapestry of family struggles and the bustle of city life, the layout of her apartment, about how traffic is awful and, most prominently, her superiority to every person with whom she ever worked or will work:
"They're all a bunch of robots," she yelled in her poor friend's face. "They're just going through the motions. They never think for themselves. I'm the only one up there who thinks for herself. I'm the smartest person there. And I told them if I didn't get my way, I was just going to leave, and I'm going to let everybody know it because I'm the most important person in this restaurant, and hey that guy at the next table's head just exploded. Gross. Now, back to me ..."
The longer we sat there, inadvertently eavesdropping on this conversation, the more Mandy and I realized we could do nothing but. LLNC's stories bullied away our own, leaving us to pick at our pizza in joyless silence.
When the server dropped by to check if we were enjoying our meal, we asked for a to-go box and the check. The poor guy seemed confused why we were leaving with most of our food in hand instead of in stomach.
I would have explained, but don't think he would have caught a word of it.
ADAM ARMOUR is the news editor for the Daily Journal and former general manager of The Itawamba County Times. You may reach him via his Twitter handle, @admarmr.
