The Early Bird Special

by Charlotte Savage

I met my boyfriend Milton in 1998.  He lived in Century village, Boca Raton. When I first went down to visit him I learned of the early bird dinners which usually began at four o'clock.  However, I liked to swim in the late afternoon and not be dressing for dinner at three p.m.    Instead I went grocery shopping and cooked our meals leaving the weekends open to dine out around seven p.m.  In the beginning the ladies in his building were very friendly to me, asking me to play cards with them or join them for tea in their condo.   However as the weeks went by these ladies became less and less friendly.  I couldn't imagine what I had done to alienate them.

Then one afternoon when I was relaxing on a lounge chair at the pool, with my hat covering most of my face, I was almost asleep when Milton came down to chat with his friends.  They were sitting a short distance from where I was resting.  I heard him bragging about what a great cook I was.   He described our dinner the night before which was homemade mushroom barley soup with a lamb base and that he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life before.  

 The men were for the most part silent until one of the wives joined them.  Then her husband asked Milton to describe my menu from the night before to his wife.  When Milton finished, the gentleman asked his wife why Milt's girlfriend found it convenient to cook for him, while his wife of forty years insisted he be dressed at three p.m. to go to the early bird special.  

The irate wife answered, "Well if forty years of cooking isn't good enough for you then I think it's high time you found yourself a new girlfriend because if you want to eat with me--I will be at the early bird special." She left the pool in a huff.

That evening I had a little talk with Milton and suggested that he not be bragging about my cooking to his buddies because otherwise I would be the one not cooking and he would be the one getting dressed for the early bird special. 

Milt came to the conclusion that silence was golden and it wasn't too long before these ladies were once again my friends.

2018 Charlotte Savage, all rights reserved.