Outback Steakhouse...Draft Beer Served at 38 Degrees

“How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“Are you married?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
My daughter Hunter felt the eyes of everyone in our section of the restaurant fixed on her as she buried her face in her hands.
“She’s not getting married until she’s thirty,” I told Larry the balloon twister.
“Your dad says you have to be thirty to get married,” Larry said in sing song as he put the last few twists on a blue elephant he was making. “How old do you think you have to be to get married? Twelve?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Hunter said as she pushed the plastic pachyderm out in front of her on the table.
Larry kept up the questionable questions as he twisted what looked like a giraffe with antlers for Laura and a large pink and red butterfly for Emma. “You can use this butterfly as a Thigh Master,” Larry said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get that joke in the future sometime late at night,” he told the three year old.
“The balloon man is new here,” said my friend Dave. “Outback Steakhouse is one of my favorite restaurants.”

Dave and I both ordered Samuel Adams draft beers which were served in lightly frosted tulipped shaped beer glasses at thirty-eight degrees. Samuel Adams is the cornerstone beer of the Boston Beer Company that started out as a micro brewery in the 1980s. A relative newcomer in the brewery world, the Boston Beer Company has grown into to a national player, now even traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SAM. Our waitress announced that Outback Steakhouse had a two for one happy hour special so we each had a second beer later in the meal.

For dinner I ordered the Boomerang Shrimp and a dinner salad with ranch dressing. The salads were quickly served with lettuce, sliced tomato and pieces of cucumber, topped with croutons, grated cheese and several rings of purple onion.
The shrimp, nestled on a bed of french fries and served with small cups of tarter sauce, cocktail sauce and ketchup, were tasty and plentiful. I had ample to share samples with my table mates.
Heidi, Allison and Dave ordered the steak special. Heidi chose the garlic mashed potatoes as a side dish which she loved.
“I am never disappointed here,” said Dave. “Their steaks are consistently good.”
The waitress was quick and friendly and the food was fresh and delicious. The Outback Steakhouse has two locations in Tucson, 4871 East Grant Road and 2240 West Ina Road. On a Saturday night the tables fill up fast so the hostesses resort to passing out red light flashing, vibrating pagers to call the guests in from the small waiting area and outside patio.

As we ate our dinner the conversation turned a little more serious. We talked about the huge mortgage company that was in the news for closing its doors to reorganize while letting go most of its employees. We knew a husband and father who lost his job. We knew a couple who were left scrambling for another lender the very week they bought their new home. We knew another couple who were trapped with two properties as they could not sell their old house after moving into a new one.
Our conversation turned toward friendship, and not the pleasant part of having friends, but rather how sometimes a person can get hurt in a friendship.
“People do what’s best for themselves.”
“A person has to do what’s best for himself and his family.”
“A person should always aspire to getting ahead in life.” These were the kinds of things that were being said as we rationalized the kind of hurtful actions we had all experienced at sometime in the past from our friends.

“How old are you?”
“I am seven,” said the small boy at the table across from ours.
“Do you have a wife?”
“No!”
“Why not?”

“Larry is back,” said Dave. “I still really like this restaurant.”