Title: The Bear went over a Glow Worm (1/2) Authors: Cousin Shelley and Arletta Asbury Faction: Cousins Date: Saturday, July 7th, 2001 Time: Sometime in the Early Evening Right after "Testing and Luck (1/1)" Disclaimers: All participants used with permission. Vampbear borrowed with permission of the Glowworms. Catriona is a fictional character created by us. "Where to first?" asked Arletta. "How about the 'Fiendish Glow'? Listen to this," Shelley replied, reading from a book labeled "Toronto Eats", "'You will find authentic cuisine, fine beverages, imported liquors, live entertainment, and friendly service.' Sounds like a great place!" "Hey, aren't we supposed to be doing this for *LaCroix*?" Arletta gave Shelley a suspicious look. "Uh, yeah...sure we are. But it never hurts to hit the places that sound good first, does it?" Shelley replied, doing her best to look innocent. It wasn't working. "But I thought we were going to Taco Bell first," complained Arletta, as Shelley started up the van. "Ewwww, yuk, I got sick from there once, let's go for some *good* food...besides, LaCroix is paying, remember?" she snickered. -------------------------------------------- Arriving at the Fiendish Glow, Shelley pulled her van into a close spot marked 'Handicapped Parking Only'. How she loved those handicapped plates on her car that allowed her to park so close to most things. She and Arletta got out and walked to the corner that held the establishment. Once there, they saw that it was actually two restaurants....a Celtic pub downstairs, and a Mexican cantina on the street level. "Which one should we try first?" Shelley asked. "I guess the pub first," came Arletta's reply, "then the cantina afterwards". The two headed down. --------------------------------------------- Looking at the menu, Shelley's mouth began to water. She had always loved Irish cuisine, and here was an entire restaurant full of it. Coming here first had been a GOOD idea. "Hello, my name is Catriona, what can I get for you?" said a waitress to the pair. "Yes," Shelley responded, pointing to the menu. "Excuse me?" the waitress asked, more than a little confused. "Everything," Arletta said. "We would like one of everything on the menu, please." The waitress walked away, still confused as she put the order in. She was a new waitress and didn't realize just how odd this request was. Behind her, she heard one of her strange customers yell, "Breakfast items too, please!" ------------------------------------------------------ Shelley quickly brought the bottle of clear liquid up, and put a few drops onto her Shepard's Pie. After about 10 seconds, it turned a lovely shade of magenta, with chartreuse highlights. "What color are we looking for again?" she asked. "Electric blue," Arletta sighed while dropping some liquid on her corned beef and cabbage. The cabbage turned bright orange, and the corned beef was a lovely shade of shocking pink. "Not here either," she sighed. "Anything left to test?" Shelley asked, surveying the table. Mounds of food were piled up, each with it's own interesting and very wrong color. But nothing in electric blue at all, which would indicate the presence of Vitamin U. "No, that's it...the entire menu," sighed Arletta. "I guess it's time to pay the bill and head to the cantina upstairs." Shelley fished the borrowed credit card out of her pocket and plopped it down on top of the bill for the waitress to see. "I hope this works," she muttered to herself. The waitress scooped it up a few minutes later and went to process it. Shelley crossed her fingers under the table and said a quick prayer to whatever deity controlled credit card approvals. "Ummm, excuse me?" said the waitress, holding out the card. "Which one of you is *Lucien*?" she said with a sarcastic grin. "I believe that's a man's name". Arletta broke into a sweat. Shelley looked pale. "Well, uh, you see....uhhh, we are, ummmmm....." she stuttered out. Arletta picked up where Shelley left off, "we know the.. ummmm...uhhh, card holder, and ummmmm......" "We h-h-h-have permission?" Shelley finished, voice rising in a question. "Yes, p-p-permission, from the credit card holder," Arletta finished. Both women looked at the waitress and smiled innocent smiles. "Well, I don't know...." she said, doubtfully. "We-we have a letter?" tried Shelley. She pulled out the *very* forged letter signed by one *very* not real LaCroix. Arletta had a stunned look on her face, but kept quiet. "It's a policy of Visa that anyone with a letter from the card holder can use the card...everyone knows *that*," Shelley said, feeling a lot less confident than she sounded and hoping against hope that the waitress was really as new as she appeared to be. "Try it! It'll go through just *fine*." Again, she said a silent prayer to that elusive deity of credit card approvals. As the waitress walked away, Arletta hissed, "where did you get *that*???" "Did I ever tell you about my career in high school of forging parental signatures on excuses?" Arletta looked dubious. Five minutes later, the waitress returned with a slip of paper, the letter, and the card. "Sign here," she said, and shrugged. "I guess it was all right, it went through". Shelley signed the paper with her real name without even thinking about it. Relief spread through her as they quickly walked out the door and up to the Cantina to repeat the entire performance. Behind them, they could hear the waitress exclaiming, "Look at this food! The colors are so, so....odd!" --------------------