Sure, we can get seafood. Thing of it is, you know, the closest place is the Red Lobster out on 22, and you know what happened last time.
Don’t tell me you’re blaming me for what happened. You had the same thought I did. I mean, I know, I was the one who tackled the waiter, but you had your knife out of your thigh sheath before I even got up. He looked exactly like that Bulgarian terrorist, and both of us thought so. I thought it was very nice for him to accept our apology like that, but I think you and I both know we need to go somewhere else.
Well, I don’t know. The only place I know of that’s close is that Cajun place we went to that time, and I know you didn’t like that. I didn’t think much of it either, but if you want seafood, that’s pretty much our choice. Unless you want to drive down the Shore and find someplace, and we’d be passing about fifty decent local places.
If all you want is shrimp, you liked that salt-and-pepper shrimp at that Chinese place in Somerville, and then we could swing by and get ice cream at that place across the street.
Okay, first, I didn’t know you didn’t want Chinese. I just said if you wanted shrimp, that they had good shrimp. And maybe ice cream doesn’t go with Chinese food. It was just a thought. I have those sometimes. You know, like that thought I had about exploiting that security vulnerability in the fire-control systems on those Russian submarines. You said that was a good thought at the time. Even Perkins thought so, and you know what he’s like.
So it was three years ago. That’s beside the point. It was still a good thought.
Fine, then. If you want shrimp, we could get Italian. There’s that place on 206 that had the garlic shrimp with the marinara.
No, that’s the place over behind the municipal building. This is the place next to the fitness club. With the deli on the other side.
Yes, I know it’s controlled by the Sicilian syndicate.
Yes, I know they import heroin.
You said you wanted seafood. I am just throwing out suggestions here. I only assume that you want shrimp, because every single time we go out for seafood, you get the shrimp. The last time you didn’t was that place in Barcelona, when we went out there to defuse that warhead, and you got the paella, and that had shrimp in it.
Well, this is the thing. I have no problem going into the city if that’s what you want to do. But we need to leave right now to get the next train out of New Brunswick, and there are plenty of decent restaurants there. And we’d have to call the Bureau when we find a place and get it swept for bugs, and who knows how long that will take.
Oh, for God’s sake.
Because there’d be an audit, that’s why. Because there’s always an audit when someone uses taxpayer dollars to do something like fly up to Maine for lobster. Even if we used the homeland security dollars, there’d still be an audit. Even if we could claim national security interests were at stake, it would still look bad.
And now you’re using that slot machine thingy. Urbanspoon. I know it’s not a slot machine, but that’s what it reminds me of.
I don’t like it. We’re grownups. We ought to be able to pick out a restaurant without having to resort to a pseudorandom algorithm. And the last time we used that, we ended up in that Ethiopian restaurant in Metuchen. Yeah. That one. The one with the qat smugglers, you remember. You called the DEA, they started a firefight, that one.
Okay, what’s the thingy say, anyway?
Oh, yeah. The crab place, in Lawrenceville. It’s kind of a hike.
Well, then spin the wheels again and see what it says this time.
Okay, that’s the place in Princeton with the grill and the chalkboard? We’ve been there before, right? And there’s that ice cream place next to campus.
I have to admit, that sounds pretty good. Okay? Then it’s settled. No, I thought we’d take your car. Because it’s smaller, and it’s easier to parallel park. It’s Princeton, we’ll probably have to parallel park.
Oh, for God’s sake.