Caution: Hot

Ever experience those beastly people in restaurants who are obnoxiously loud? You know, the hyena pack that cackles around a fresh dinner meal. You peer at the troop from behind plated garnish leaves, across taupe savanna carpeting, and your own neatly camouflaged white table cloth just to examine what's going on. "Within ear shot," for the loud group means being able to communicate across any expanse of $200 bottles of wine, of which there are many. Then, did it finally occur to you that this same legion of raucous supper personalities, with their hungry outbursts of laughter, and colorful displays of celebratory bags and boxes is a birthday dinner party?

Here we are at Elements, in Sanctuary, Paradise Valley. Guess who's birthday it is?! Yes, it's mine. Woo-hoo! Like the cattle we're assumed to be, we're herded to our seats and given some grass and fresh water. Oh, the grass is to refresh your breath, you say? That's interesting. And we're paying how much for it? Fantastic, I love when money grows on trees!

Our chic group settles in, and I reach for the card labeled: "Caution: Hotness Inside!"

...I really should have paid more attention to the warning...

Asking the table for a non-existent letter opener, and not thinking to manhandle my butter knife through the envelope, I seductively slide my keys between the sheets of paper, and work open the seam, exposing the card with my fingers.

At that precise moment, the manager of the restaurant comes to our table with a waiter in tow to greet us before our meal, all the while I slide the card out of it's crisp sleeve. "OH!" I exclaim, to which everyone anticipatingly look toward me. Peering down at my hands, the waiter chokes on a gulp of rapidly entering air, and the manager grabs her stomach like she'd just been punched.

On the front of the card was an attractive, yet marginally... no, that's the wrong word... extremely excited model with a ginormous pink member poking toward his chin gingerly smiling back at me.

Caution: Hotness exposed.

I don't think that's something they see every day in a restaurant on top of the hill. "Could I have some more water, please," I ask the disturbed waiter, who had spilled his pitcher on the table from focusing on my paper friend. Looking around, and noticing the manager had disappeared, I say, "And, looking at the menu, I'm glad you don't have sausage on there for appetisers. I do see that you have fish tho. How wonderful."

Duck and cover, pass the card to your left, have some water after viewing, and then remember to thank your friends for their sense of humor.