Despite the 100-degree dry heat out here, my mom, sister, and I decided to have an outing.
I wasn’t trying to be a delicate, little light-skinned Southern belle (only Black), I just didn’t want to get fried so I used my lucky purple, pink-spotted umbrella as a parasole. My sister had a wicked headache and with her sensitivity to heat because of the MS, she really didn’t want to be out there. But…went we did, vowing to stop by the store and see the extended stay motel mom had stayed in for two months while we rationed a $90 food and necessity budget back home before we got here.
Since I love pho (Vietnamese rice noodle soup), we were going to this pho place that my mom swears by. Instead, we ended up on a two-hour bus trip and barely made it to the store.
I was hot. I was hungry. I was grouchy. I still wanted pho. The pho place would have required us to take another bus down the street so we went into Applebee’s instead.
Upon entering the restaurant, no one greeted us though several of the employees on the floor in Applebee’s t-shirts saw us come in. We waited. No one appeared. So we sat down and waited in the waiting area, usually reserved for when its crowded and taking time to seat folks. For how long, I don’t know. Two minutes. Five minutes. It wasn’t crowded at all so I had no idea why no one was coming to greet us and seat us.
A white woman, her husband, and three small children entered the Applebee’s some time behind us. Immediately, a smiling white female Applebee’s employee appeared and said, “Hi! someone will be right with you.”
She wasn’t talking to us. She didn’t even look at us.
Welcome to Fresno.
sam
So much for the California love. You should have said: Excuse moi, parle vouz france, je suis un tourist. And then tell to the white empolye that you are famous french movie star, could you fetch me the manager. And tell him to get rid of that kind of staff.
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