Thursday, June 08, 2006

Ultimate Nachos Day!

Today there's going to be a problem at your new restaurant, Ultimate Nachos. You designed your restaurant to be the place where people can go to eat the last meal of their lives. All of the dishes at Ultimate Nachos are poisoned with a lethal amount of the barbiturate of the diner's choice. All diners are guaranteed that their last meal will be the best they ever had, and that they will not leave the restaurant alive. Diners are also guaranteed that they will die painlessly, peacefully, and full. To guarantee a peaceful death, diners are given a physical by an on-site physician when they make a reservation. The physical is to determine any allergies to any particular anesthetic, so as to avoid a painful rejection of the poison that is supposed to send the diner to a sleepy grave with a full belly.

Ultimate Nachos makes the restaurant sound casual, but it's anything but. In fact, diners can request any d'cor they choose, with twelve rooms pre-decorated according to popular motifs (French fine dining, seaside cantina, whorehouse snack bar), and a dozen rooms prepped for custom design (most people request a replica of their childhood kitchen table). You decided on the name Ultimate Nachos because you wanted a name that seemed to convey a sense of the infinite. Also, your chef makes the best ultimate nachos that money can buy (he uses real guacamole, not the fake stuff).

Today is going to be a rough day because your new waiter is an idiot and he's going to mix up the plates and kill the wrong person at table five. Diners who want to die often show up with friends and family with whom they want to share their last meal. It's always troubling when a friend of the soon-to-be-deceased orders the same dish as the expiring diner, but you set up a simple and seemingly fool-proof system of avoiding mix-ups: The chef puts a sprig of parsley on the dish that has the poison in it. Easy-peasy!

Unfortunately, your new waiter won't remember whether the parsley equals poison or no poison and he's going to end up killing a terminal cancer patient's healthy young wife. Comp their drinks, but don't buy the meal unless they make a big fuss.

Happy Ultimate Nachos Day!