Cheesy Love… Mad Memories

Applebee’s Restaurants, now closed in these parts, was a staple of my teen and early adult life. My bride and I ate there on dates and as when our first two kids were young. Before the days of the coffee shop, this franchise was a good place to sit and talk with other people, so I used tables at Applebee’s as a meeting place many times. I was thinking about how a place or event can bring back memories and was reminded that the people make the memories, and the place provides the venue.

On one of our early dates, Robyn ordered a basket of cheese sticks, served with marinara sauce. If you don’t know about these, they are rolled mozzarella cheese, battered, and deep-fried. I’m not sure if I had ever had a cheese stick before this and in common practice, I grabbed one, bit into it, and immediately knew I had made a mistake. The outside was warm but the cheese on the inside was molten. It was too hot to feel for the first few seconds and that is all that it took. As I attempted to open my mouth to remove the lava cheese, it had already begun to flow out of its fried crust cacoon and sludge down the back of my throat, attempting to enter my lungs.

As any good magician, I knew how to remove mouth coils (those streamers that appear from your mouth), so I started the reeling, hand-over-hand. It didn’t work. The viscosity of the cheese expanded like hot gum on the bottom of a shoe. It thinned and still drew the larger clump down my esophagus. Now it was panic time. So, all I could do is to begin outward rough hacks in an attempt to force the murder cheese upward. Twice, thrice, and four times a charm, up came the cheese. Robyn, my lovely companion, looked horrified. I really am so surprised that she went out with me again, much less took my hand and life in marriage. Remember, one of our very first dates was me pouring soda on her.

Five years later we sat in this franchise with our almost two-year-old daughter. Robyn dismissed herself to the restroom and Cady, affixed in a booster seat across from me, begin to slowly fall sideways. In an attempt to rescue her from harm, I reach across the table, lifted her high to safety, and forcefully rammed her small head into the iron and lead glass light fixture hanging above us.

Another time, a person we had recently met, was meeting with me and Robyn at an Applebee’s, and when things were not going her way with the waitress, she began to be very rude. This was so bad for us that we had to triple-tip and apologize on her behalf. Needless to say, we never went out with this person again and had to explain that moving from “We love Jesus so much” to “Are you an idiot?” in the same breath was a deal breaker for us. She was offended.

In the Godlen Isles I met with a man who had just experienced significant financial loss. He reached out to me for counsel on how to deal with the fear. Meeting with him, I discovered he was not a believer and had no bearing of gospel peace. While I shared that with him and encouraged him to talk with his wife and family, a week later he chose to take his own life instead. So not all experiences at Applebee’s are good and not all are bad.

I will say, however, that when I truly think about things, most of our enjoyment of good friends, laughs, and interesting stories are positive. It’s hard, though, to not focus on the painful things, even though there are more good times than bad. And in the end, it has nothing to do with a restaurant and everything to do with intentional relationships, working themselves out as friends or enemies, for the sake of life together. We can, as we are going, relate to people and those who really love us, who walk with us without unrealistic conditions, are those we will hold dear for a lifetime.

I miss a lot of amazing people. But I also have a lot of amazing people in my life. So, instead of me wasting away morning what I have lost, I prefer to rejoice in what I have, and that is much.

Walk with me in this is you will. Your joy will be full when you know, and your mind will be on things that matter with those who matter. What love. What living. What a resting place – to be in Christ with His people and to be IN Christ even when others are not, He is.