Place: Waffle House
Lunch (breakfast? brunch?): Two eggs (over light...no, medium), toast, bacon, chili, Coke
Worst. Crew. EVER.
Two of the five employees know what they're doing, and one of them has "given up trying to care". The other is basically handling everything and correcting the others when they do something wrong. The other three are teenagers who really don't care. It takes as long to order as it usually takes me to order, get fed, and eat. Then the woman who knows what she's doing starts lecturing me on how I ordered my eggs wrong and I'm getting "over medium" instead of "over light" regardless of what I want.
I realize she's not in a good mood. That's not my fault.
Should've gone to Jack in the Box.
Last night was an eventful evening. It started with a concert...Sugarland and Sara Bareilles, specifically. Sara Bareilles is an artist I'm familiar with...I have both her albums. Sugarland? Not so much. In fact, before the Indiana State Fair stage collapse, I'd never so much as heard of them.
To make a long story short, that tragedy led me to look up some of their material. That led me to think they seemed to put on a great live show. So I thought I'd check them out. Plus I'd get to enjoy Sara Bareilles and her catchy pop tunes about hating men.
The state fair collapse took with it Sugarland's elaborate (and really beautiful) "Incredible Machine" stage set. With maybe a few dozen shows left in the tour, they didn't rebuild. They're finishing the last dates with a simple setup. The only distinguishing thing on the stage is a backdrop tapestry with a cloud-like heart with angel wings, a tribute to the lost stage of sorts within the heart (like the set itself was flying to heaven).
Sara Bareilles was backed by a four-piece band and proved to be a really solid live performer. Why she is touring with a country-branded act I can't quite understand, but then again I can't quite put my finger on where Sugarland fits into country either.
Seeing them live didn't quite help. If you remove the duo that is Sugarland from the five-piece band backing them, you have a respectable boogie band. You could stick Kevin Cronin in front of them and they'd BE REO Speedwagon. The country aspect is the shrieking drawly crazy annoying voice of Jennifer Nettles. Through an arena sound system, she's like the country equivalent of Geddy Lee. And this band seemed to rock more than anything...there were points where they had three electric guitars going at the same time, some with distortion.
Short of that, they were fun live. I'm not buying any of their records, though. They did end with an awesome cover of "Come On Eileen". I can actually say that I've seen "Come On Eileen" performed live.
The surprise is this...Nettles wasn't even the loudest shriek I heard last night. That came later.
I headed back to the hotel after the show, swinging through the Taco Bueno drive-thru on the way. I get in, I settle in, I open my nachos and...the fire alarm in the room goes off.
WOW.
They do NOT want you to miss that.
I open the door. Others are in the hallway. Every alarm in the building is going off. Some are waiting for the elevator. Do elevators work when the fire alarms are going off? I opt for the stairs. The first floor fire doors are shut, blocking access to the lobby, so I go out the side door and walk around to the lobby, where several guests have converged. The lobby is a haze of smoke with the strong smell of...burnt popcorn. Who knew burnt popcorn could make this much smoke.
The desk clerk is on the phone with another employee, trying to figure out how to shut off the alarm.
"No, somebody burned some popcorn, and the lobby is full of smoke, and I can't shut the alarm off."
"No, ALL the alarms are going off. In the rooms and everything."
"Change the BATTERIES??? ALL of them???"
I decide to prop open the lobby doors to try and air out the smoke. Another guests helps. We find something to hold the doors open (big planters outside the entrance).
At this point, I hear sirens. The fire department is pulling up. As the first fireman gets out, I explain what happened. He snickers that snicker that says "Yeah, that happens."
They walk in to do their inspection. They grab a big fan. They reset the alarm.
There's about 30 guests waiting for the elevator, so a bunch of us take the stairs. One of the rooms at the top of the stairs still has a fire alarm on. One of the girls staying in said room runs downstairs to complain.
My room is fine.
I settle in and enjoy my nachos.
My cold, soggy nachos.
