It wasn't as bad I thought it would be.

The cast: Deer Hunter, Parogi, and Ears (apparently this is what her son calls her). Our first night in San Antonio was spent having dinner on the River Walk. I went there once when I was in basic training but, like many of my BMT adventures, I did not remember it. Based on the praises of passerby, we decided to eat at an odd hole-in-the-wall-seeming restaurant called Delores Del Rio. It featured tasty yet overpriced Italian food, a jazz musician, and a belly dancer. The belly dancer didn't come out until much later.

We sat down and proceeded to order our drinks. I obtained for myself a carafe of white wine and refused to use the glass that was provided.

Deer Hunger and Parogi, being manly men, ordered beer. Ears is finicky when it comes wine, and the waitress, a middle-aged blond woman, recommended the house wine. The house wine was stored in a very large jug and was two-thirds full, so Ears assumed it had been open for a while and may have obtained a vinegary taste as a result. She said she would try a taste, though.

What the waitress brought was not a taste; it was half a glass. Ears took a sip, and without thinking said in suprise, "Oh, it's not as bad as I thought it would be!"

Let me tell you, hell froze over. The immediate surrounding area of our table became as frigid as Fairbanks in January. In that waitress's eyes, Ears was the dirt beneath her feet. We spent the rest of the night giving her a hard time, and she spent the rest of the night sucking up to the waitress.

At one point, Ears got up to go use the bathroom. When she came back, she said, "The belly dancer is back there, and she's fat!" Oh dear. Parogi became curious, and he went to use the bathroom too. He confirmed the fatness upon his return. Finally, I get up to use the bathroom. What I see is an older lady dressed in a quirky fashion in jeans and a t-shirt, just hanging out in the kitchen. I knew she wasn't the belly dancer.

When the belly dancer finally did show up, she was an okay-looking girl in her late twenties, early thirties. She didn't do anything impressive, but according to the waitress she teaches a belly dance class. I found this hard to believe, because while she wasn't fat she didn't have the muscular build in the middle of her body that most belly dancers have.

We found out later that the old lady in the back is the owner, the middle-aged waitress is her daughter (hence being personally offended by Ears), and the younger belly dancer is the owner's girlfriend. Hm.