Belly Achin'

We were out to dinner a few nights ago at Wild Wings Cafe. We are pretty knowledgeable when it comes to when and where there are "Kids Eat Free" or other special discounts. Our entire family of six can eat for less than $17 at Firehouse Subs on a Wednesday night. Moe's costs us about $25 on a Tuesday night and McCallister's will run about the same on either Sunday or Wednesday.

Our routine is to eat out one night each week. Tricia and I don't eat fast food which means that, by default, neither do the kids. I haven't eaten at a McDonalds in more than nine years and wouldn't even know what Hardee's, Burger King, or Rush's has on the menu beyond the usual burger and fries.

Tricia and I used to eat a whole lot of fast food. Taco Bell was our favorite. However, after finding out about ten years ago that Tricia's cholesterol was high, and then later finding out that she was pregnant with Harper, we decided that we better clean up our act. After all this time it's really easy to avoid foods that are greasy and fatty. Our systems are so unaccostomed to them that if we were to stop by and have a burger from, say, Steak 'n Shake our stomachs would scream in protest the rest of the evening and maybe even the next morning.

The kids don't eat this type of food either. A few of them don't mind because: (1) They don't know what they're missing, and (2) They aren't big meat eaters. A couple of the others, though, do miss it - or at least long for it. This divide seems to be framed by gender which may or may not be a coincidence, I don't know. When their grandparents come in town twice each year they'll usually wind up going to a fast food place while Tricia and I are out running an errand, going for a hike, or seeing a movie. They are also allowed to pick the restaurant each year for their birthday dinner. Ty has talked the past few months about going to McDonalds but fears that "dad won't eat anything there." I made the mistake of telling him this. I promised that I would be happy to take him to McDonalds if that's where he really wanted to go but that I'd probably wait to eat when I got back home. I felt bad about this afterward but I'm still not so certain it was all that wrong.

Because we wind up eating at the same small collection of restaurants over and again we sometimes make a conscious effort to find somewhere new or, at least, less frequented. This is where the decision to go to Wild Wings came from. We eat here maybe two or three times each year. It's not great but it's not bad either. The kids love all the TV screens plastered to every wall. There's no sound and all the programming is sports but they don't seem to mind. Generally Ainsley will sit and color on her placemat while the other three allow their eyes to dance indecisively from screen to screen.

When the waiter came over to take our orders the kids took turns telling her what they wanted. Ty tends to choose anything with the words "nuggets" or "dogs" attached to it. Ainsley and Harper seek out the word "chicken." And Muluken often begins by asking if he can order off the adult menu. He has the appetite of a Samoan. Sometimes we let him but often we don't. We have a very well defined budget for eating out and are careful to stay within it's confines.

However, the waitress explained that Tuesdays are dubbed "Two for Tuesdays" which means that if you order six chicken wings you get twelve, order eight you get sixteen, and so on. I asked Muluken if he wanted to split an order of sixteen with me. He began licking his lips and excitedly agreed. Chicken wings, for me, are like donuts. I hardly ever eat them. But each time I do I wind up with a belly ache and a sense of stupidity for doing this to myself. The problem is that after a few months I somehow allow myself to forget all this.

So Muluken and I looked over the menu at all the sauce options. There were all kinds of crazy choices I didn't even recognize or understand - Red Dragon, The General, Colorado Coppers. All-in-all there were thirty-four different sauces to choose from. Not a big fan of too many choices, I keyed in on the top eight or so at the top. They had simplistic, if not boring, names that I could comprehend - Virgin, Medium, Hot, Cherynobl. These were obviously in reference to each sauce's degree of heat. Liking spicy foods to a reasonable degree, I decided I would try the Hot.

I looked over at Muluken and saw that his index finger was sliding down the menu past Hot and Cherynobl to China Syndrome. "Very peppery, very hot, and very good" it read. He then pointed to Habenero Hots: "Something special for the insane." The last one, with a dark - almost black - picture of a pepper next to it, was Braveheart: "So hot you can lose your head over it."

These last three sauces were, according to the pictures of the peppers, the hottest they offered on the menu.

"What are you thinking about getting?" I asked Muluken.

"Habenero Hots," he answered.

"Buddy, those are going to be REALLY hot," I cautioned. "It says they're for the insane."

"I'm not insane!" he replied.

"But maybe if you order those you will be," I said.

He was not to be undeterred. When the waitress made her way over to him he ordered his wings.

"Oh, those are really hot!" she said with a slight look of disapproval.

"I know," he said and she looked down at me as though waiting to see if I'd override his choice.

I did not.

Once the wings came he ate all eight as he eats everything - fast and efficientlt. There was nothing left but a small stack of bare bones piled on his plate. We kept watching for signs of discomfort but he really hadn't even taken many drinks from his water. He reached across the table and accepted two of my mom's wings, with a more forgiving Medium sauce, and devoured those as well.

And then it hit him.

He started by constantly licking his lips as though he were trying to cool them. Then he started in on his water. Small trickles of tears began emerging at the corners of his eyes and he clutched his stomach. After about a minute or two he was beyond tearing up and full-out crying.

"What's wrong Muluken?" we all asked.

"MY STOMACH," he responded. "I DON'T FEEL VERY GOOD!"

'Was it too hot?" I asked.

"No," he argued. "It wasn't too hot." He doubled over and rested his forehead on the table. "I feel like I'm going to throw up!"

This was about the last thing Ainsley wanted to hear. She too began to tear up and hid her face in her arms. As we made our way out the door Muluken let out a very audible burp.

"I feel a little better now," he assured us.

Three burps later and he was soon in the back of the van with Harper laughing and playing again. And swearing off hot wings.

We'll have to make a deal - I'll keep him away from the wings and he can keep me away from the donuts.