LATE NIGHT STEAK N’ SHAKE

When we go to visit our friends in Kentucky, there is always a group that heads out to the Waffle House.  It’s my thing.  I love the Waffle House and make it my mission to go there at least once while we are down there.  But we don’t have those here in Michigan so going to the IHOP was suggested.  I offered to take anybody who wanted to go.  Most everybody was tired except for the kids.  “Really!?  You’re serious?”  I said , let’s go.  So at midnight on a Saturday night I took Max, Abby, Matthew, and Sara.  Sara wasn’t part of the original group to go, but when she heard we were going, I’ve never seen someone so excited to go to the IHOP.  “I wanna go, I wanna go!”

Unfortunately, the IHOP was closed.  But the Steak N’Shake was open.  Even better.  I wasn’t feeling much like pancakes anyway.

When we sat down, Matthew and Max kept praising me for how awesome I was for taking them on a midnight junk food run.  Yeah, I know.  I specialize in awesomeness.  As long as they don’t see a picture of me when I was 12… or 16… or 20, I think I can maintain that image for them.

When it came to ordering, Sara wanted soup.  “I’m really craving soup right now.”  The soup of the day was vegetable beef.  Now, I don’t know Sara all that well, but from what I do, I don’t recall her liking vegetables (like most kids her age).  So I differed to her older sister Abby.  Is she gonna eat that? I asked.  “She wants it, sure.”  Sara also wanted a milkshake.  Again, I deferred to her sister.  Will she eat a whole milkshake now?  “No.”  We decided to split one.  I’m not one to share food, especially food that is ice cream, but I was still so full from the dinner we had.  And I can be nice to a seven year old.

The crew who didn’t order a milkshake ordered something with melted cheese all over it.  Something pretty typical for a midnight Steak N’Shake run, I’d say.  But what did Matthew order?  A salad.  A thirteen year old boy, at Steak N’Shake, at midnight, ordered a salad.  Who does that!?  I mean, I love my vegetables too, but I also know the midnight Steak N’Shake etiquette.  When Aya showed up unannounced a little later(apparently she couldn’t just let me be the “cool one,” she had to have that title too), even she had to razz him about it.  But to his credit, he did drench it all in Ranch dressing, so I guess it evens out.

When the soup arrived, Sara said, “It has vegetables in it!  I should have gotten chili instead.”  But Sara, it was called vegetable beef soup.  Try it, I bet it’s good.  She had a few bites, crumbled crackers on it, had one more bite, crumpled her face, and then I ate the rest of it.  Then she polished off the shake and ate some of Aya’s chili cheese fries.  Matthew should take a lesson from Sara.  Less vegetables, and more melted cheese.

Me, Aya, a few kids, and lots of melted cheese at a Steak N’Shake at midnight…

It was no Waffle House run, but it was still a good night just the same.