Picking up where we left off.
Smith County, Tennessee, where we stopped for gas and lunch, was the scene of some unplanned evangelizing on our part. That is, I don’t know that we evangelized anyone, exactly, so much as simply engaged in pleasant and informative conversation. Possibly the people we talked to are still talking about us, too.
We were traveling on a Friday. Yes, I know, before anyone says anything, that technically speaking, Catholics don’t have to abstain from meat on Fridays outside Lent. But we do. Yes, I also know that travelers are dispensed from rules of abstinence. All that notwithstanding, at this exit where we stopped for gas there also happened to be a MacDonalds, and they of course serve fish sandwiches. So no excuses. Right? Right.
First stop: gas station. Everyone wanted to get out and rest, as they say. After resting, as we stood waiting for my husband to pay for the gas, the five-year-old started pulling at me and asking what was for lunch, and whether she could have a Happy Meal.
“It’s Friday,” I told her. “Remember? No meat.”
“Wha’d she say?” the cashier asked my husband.
He explained that we were Catholic, and about Friday as the day of the Crucifixion, and blah blah blah, and therefore we would all be having the fish sandwich, which I suppose could hereafter be known as the McAbstinence.
“Rilly?” said the cashier. “I never heard that. My grandmama and them’s all Catholic, and I never heard that in my life.”
Handing my husband his change, she added, “Well, I learned something today.”
And so on to the MacDonalds. My husband went in alone, and here is what transpired, according to him:
Husband to cashier: I’d like six fish sandwiches, please.
Teenaged boy on food line: Six fish?
Cashier to idle employee standing beside her: Ever time it rains we sell a lot of fish.
Husband: Actually, we’re Catholic, see, and blah blah blah, and the Crucifixion, and therefore.
Cashier: Well, I learned something today.
Husband: And four large fries.
The cashier asked him whether he wanted his ten fried food items for there or to go. The entire staff seemed to want to watch him eat the whole thing all by himself.
I wonder: It wasn’t actually raining that day. The sun was blazing away in the sky. But do people really buy more MacDonalds fish sandwiches when it rains?
Boy, is it wet. I feel like a . . . I mean, some . . . fish . . .
Inquiring minds, &c.
July 31st, 2009 | 1:56 pm
I owned a Captain D’s Seafood franchise in Oklahoma City when I was a much younger man. I assure you – when it rained, we got a big increase in our business that day. Can’t explain it but it’s true. I even polled the customers once. Most said the rain didn’t have anything to do with it – just wanted a fish and chips. But there were a lot more of them on rainy days than others.
July 31st, 2009 | 1:58 pm
BTW you should have plenty of Captain D’s in your neck of the woods. They beat McDonalds all hollow when it comes to fish – or even hamburgers for that matter.
July 31st, 2009 | 2:10 pm
That’s completely fascinating. I wonder whether quasi-English weather makes people want food like that, whether or not they know that the idea of fish and chips originated in England. Some buried, culturally-subconscious association between rain and fried fish . . .
I’m not sure we have a Captain D’s in my town. I’d have to drive for it. We do have the world’s largest Bojangles Fried Chicken, though clearly that’s no help to me on Fridays. And we have a couple of locally-owned fish camps. Honestly, unless I’m on the road, and especially unless I’m on the road in the company of my husband, I don’t go to fast-food restaurants at all. I’d rather cook, or else hold out for a place where I get to sit down and they bring to me better food than I could make for myself.
July 31st, 2009 | 4:30 pm
An unsolicited testimony: I used to live in Oklahoma for a couple of years and ate at Captain D’s frequently. Up here in Iowa, my home state, we have Long John Silver’s shops. But I still remember Captain D’s with fondness–much better than LJS’s.
And just having returned from a long trip to the U.K.: When a restaurant serves fish and chips but does not have malt vinegar on the table or even in the kitchen–you may be in Iowa. (P.S. I love Iowa otherwise. Well, except for the recent gay marriage ruling.)
July 31st, 2009 | 5:21 pm
Well, you might be in North Carolina, too. Re the malt vinegar, I mean.
Oh, I’m very familiar with both Captain D’s and Long John Silver’s. We had them both in Memphis when I was growing up.
August 1st, 2009 | 2:28 am
Fact: Fish bite better if it is raining, or if someone in the boat is reading Victor Hugo. I’ve seen it happen at least as often as not.
August 1st, 2009 | 8:26 am
Was it raining that day? I guess I was too busy reading Victor Hugo and losing all your lures in the trees to notice.
Evidence does seem to indicate that whatever the habits of fish might be, people bite them better when it’s raining.
August 1st, 2009 | 11:03 pm
That was a memorable trip; good weather, pleasant company and a remarkable stretch of river. Despite what one might imagine from their depiction in fine art, on stylish apparel, and as bumper stickers, bass almost *never* come up out of the water the way that first one did. Since then I have kept a copy of Les Misérables (abridged) in the tackle box, and have feigned interest in it when things get really slow.
The rain wisdom I learned as a child, and though I doubted at the time, have since come to appreciate the perfect sense of it. I have often used it as collect to that most ancient of litanies:
People: Can we go home now? I’m (bored, cold, hot, wet, thirsty, hungry, miserable).
Leader: One more cast.
August 7th, 2009 | 8:04 am
[...] anyone think that Fridays in my house are all dolor and sacrifice and Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, let me say a few words now about homemade ice cream. Among other [...]
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