Now although this title may seem frightening, let me start by just saying: you will have to read the post to learn whether or not Dr. Typhon Garlic or anyone else died! Mwa ha ha! No reassuring reassurances at the beginning of the post for you.

It was Dr. Garlic’s day off from watching Alecia, so he and the carrier birdy decided to pay a visit to some restaurant he’d seen the other day.

He’d wanted to eat there before, but Alecia had found ominous reviews on the Internet from dissatisfied customers (or “survivors”, as they called themselves), so they went to some lame pizza place Alecia chose instead. It turned out the pizza was only made with 100% goat cheese, which neither of them enjoyed too much.

Anyway, since I seem to be having trouble staying on topic, here is Dr. Garlic’s horrific journal entry. Oh, wait. Oops. I guess I just gave away the fact that he isn’t dead. Darn.

09.06.13

I have just recovered from a less-than-delightful dining experience at Twin Daggers Restaurant, a place I’d seen the other day. I guess it just didn’t occur to me that there might have been a reason why weapons were right in the dangerous dive’s name. All I can say is about it is this: Don’t eat there. If you do, you will likely be poisoned and/or die, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The place had a false air of happiness, probably because it was “Happy Hour.” (Very misleading if you ask me. Besides its lack of happiness, the “hour” lasted from 2:00 to 5:00. Anyone with a knowledge of basic arithmetic knows that’s two hours, not one. Or is it? Hmm… what’s two minus five, again?)

It also had a not-so-false air of lemons, because one of the employees was slicing lemons. I assume he was trying to battle the non-real happiness by making himself cry or something, but he really should have been using onions for that.

Anyway, I can’t imagine they were making any money off their unhappy hour, because there were only three other customers (or victims, in my mind) there when I entered.

Though I could have seated myself farther away from them, I was feeling kind of lazy, so I just took the most nearby table: the booth right behind them.

The waiter had just arrived with the last of their food. One of them, who I later determined must have been some type of dignitary, had received a plate of pancakes. “Harvey? Sue? I did not order this.” Apparently he hadn’t asked for it.

“Oh, sure, but I kinda thunk you looked in need of some vittles–” started the one in overalls, but he was cut short.

“Harvey, I did not come to this low-end dump for the food. Get rid of this disgusting pile of moldy half-cooked pancake batter right this instant.”

The overalled one, Harvey, grabbed the pancakes, and looked like he was about to call the waiter over, when he happened across a better idea. “Hey,” he said, turning to me, “Would you like these? Stinewell over here don’t want ’em, an’ I don’t want to let good food to go to waste, now.”

“Sure, why not?” (I can now think of well over a million reasons.) Harvey handed the pancakes to me, and I foolishly accepted them. The waiter soon arrived, and I ordered a side of sea cucumber fries (mostly for my carrier birdy).

The waiter returned shortly with the sea cucumber fries. Needless to say, they tasted really funky.

Now, although I didn’t mean to snoop, I couldn’t help but notice the head chef walk over to the booth behind me and plop all three hundred pounds of his body mass down. I mostly noticed the latter part.

He was greeted by the tough, mohawk-sporting guy, Sue (somehow that name doesn’t quite fit him), and they began speaking of cryptic riddles and mythical places, which I didn’t pay much attention to.

All of a sudden, when I had finished my rotten pancakes (they were literally rotten, I later learned), I felt very strange and dizzy. Everything began to darken, and the last thing I remembered hearing was Stinewell’s voice, repeating the (made-up?) word “unraed,” as if he were trying to figure out its meaning.

Three days later, I awoke in a white hospital bed, wearing an equally bland gown. “Lucky, lucky, lucky.” said a doctor standing above me. Lucky?! I thought to myself, once I had mostly regained my senses. Was she crazy?

“We’ve brought you back from the brink of death, Mr. Gralic,” she said. “And that reminds me, there’s a visitor for you: your sister.” Alecia entered, and she told me what had happened after I blacked out.

Anyway, I’ve just been released from the hospital. It goes without saying that I will be much more careful from now on, but it doesn’t hurt to write it down just in case I start feeling a little dangerous again sometime. Alecia and I are going to go on a safe little visit to the Cairo Air & Space Museum, that is, as soon as I read this boring Etiquette for Museum-Goers book she gave me…

Well, that’s it for today, folks. I suppose next time you’ll hear all about Dr. Garlic’s visit to the Cairo Air & Space Museum. Oh, and here is the question of the day: Have you ever eaten a rotten pancake? (I surely hope you haven’t!) Let me know in the comment section, and thanks for reading!