Oh, what a night

Every time I see a double baked potato, I am reminded immediately of my father-in-law. Let me explain why.



It was the first time I had ever met my future in-laws. I was really nervous, understandably, as I was now 5 hours away from home in a city that I had never been too and was spending the weekend with them. On Saturday night, we all went out to a restaurant. Not just any restaurant, but a really fancy-schmancy restaurant. Great. Now not only did I have to worry about impressing my boyfriend's parents, now I had to worry about am I using the right fork? What if I don't know what the food items on the menu are? What if I have a piece of salad or pepper stuck in my teeth? Thankfully, the restaurant was a steakhouse, so the food choices were recognizable. Now I had the worry, looking over the menu, that the cheapest item was $45 and of course was chicken, and I wanted a steak, going to a steakhouse and all, but they started at $50. My future in-laws insisted that I get whatever I wanted, so I order a fillet and double baked potato, with a salad as a starter. I really wanted to order about 3 glasses of wine, but I restrained.



So the table was rectangular, and sat 6 people. My boyfriend and I sat on one side, his sister sat on the other side, and his parents sat at the head of the table. My father-in-law was on my left, my boyfriend on my right, and his mother to his right. When the server brought out our food, she placed my plate down first, and my boyfriend promptly took his fork and went for my potato, and I slapped his hand away. His mother looked a bit surprised, and I explained to her that I HATE when people eat off my plate.



Before I go any further, I should explain why I hate people eating off my plate (besides the obvious reasons that it's rude and gross). When I was younger, my Mom made my sister and I a frozen pizza. When it was ready, she cut it into slices, and I went and took my pieces. It was then that I noticed that I had the king of mushrooms half hiding under the melted cheese. I was super excited about this mushroom, and couldn't wait to eat it. I placed my plate on the table, and went to the sink to get a glance of water. When I went back to the table, practically drooling in anticipation of eating that king mushroom, I noticed that it was gone! I looked up, and my little sister was smugly chewing and smiling.... she had stolen my prize mushroom! From that moment onward, I became protective of my food, and have stabbed a few people (well, just my sister and husband) with a fork to keep them from eating off my plate (I'm a bit better with this now that I'm older).



So back to the restaurant. As I am explaining to my future mother in-law that I despise and hate people eating off my plate, out of the corner of my eye I see a fork approach my plate and DIP INTO MY DOUBLE BAKED POTATO. I turned in shock and horror to see my future father-in-law grinning from ear to ear as he is sampling MY potato! I was stunned! Everyone at the table started laughing as I sat there helpless with my mouth hanging open. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't stab him with a fork, or slap his hand away, as he was already eating the forkful of potato. I turned to my future mother-in-law, and when she was finally able to stop laughing, she explained to me that it was her husband's company's big joke that they should buy him an extra long fork because he loved to sample other people's food.......right off their plates!

This has now become the big family joke, and I am teased mercilessly about how mean I am that I don't like to share food. However, everyone has discovered that is in their hands best interests to ask me to cut them off a piece of my food and hand it to them!