Morgan (4 1/2) is my adventurous eater, while Mason only eats the basics. For example, when we go to CiCi’s Pizza, Mason’s favorites are cheese pizza, alfredo pizza (cheese pizza with alfredo sauce), and pepperoni pizza (and sometimes he picks the pepperonis off). Morgan, on the other hand, will eat just about anything (depending on her mood).

The last time we had pizza delivered, Morgan took an interest in my order of wings. She stood next to me and watched me eat them. She was fascinated by the bones inside. During the Super Bowl, Susan cooked up a batch of mild wings, and Morgan stood next to me giving me her puppy dog eyes until I let her have one. She loved it, and came back for another. And another. And another. So it’s been established that Morgan likes Buffalo wings, and I told her the next time we got the chance, I would take her to one of the wing restaurants around town.

Last night Mason went with Granny to the skating rink, so Susan, Morgan and myself decided to go have wings for dinner. (Mason is not interested in anything spicy. Or anything messy. Or anything with bones in it.) So off the top of my head, we have Buffalo Wild Wings, and Wing Stop. Morgan is very hyper and easily distracted, and the thought of taking her to Buffalo Wild Wings (where they have at least 4,204 televisions and projector screens) instantly seemed like a bad idea, so instead we opted for Wing Stop over off of 39th and Portland.

(Yeah. Bad choice.)

The last time I was in that area was when we ate at the Chinese buffet there (Malice in the Palace), and based on my previous experience there, I was not totally surprised to see it closed down and boarded up.

Apparently Wing Stop has two types of customers: families who dine in, and gangsters and thugs (white, black and latino) who get their wings to go. There was one other family in the restaurant sitting at a table waiting for their food. The rest of the place looked like a cross between a rap concert and the welfare line, with less than savory-looking folks standing around.

We placed an order for a large (35 wing) dinner combo with three different types of wings, and bought 3 dinner rolls to go with it. When we went to get our drinks, all they had was carbonated drinks (which Susan and I can’t have). They did end up having iced-tea, but it’s behind the counter and you have to ask for it. They were out of root beer, which is what Morgan wanted (she settled for Sprite). And both bathrooms were out of order, which of course set off Morgan’s pee-pee radar.

After about ten minutes of waiting, the lady behind the counter said something unintelligible and looked at us. Susan got up, picked up our tray, and brought it back to our table. We sorted the wing baskets around and started eating. Susan noticed we didn’t get our veggies (celery and carrots), so she went back up to the counter. About that time I realized other things were wrong, too. “We didn’t get our dinner rolls either,” I said to her. As Morgan and I grabbed a few wings and started eating, I realized that we were short about 15 wings. I then looked over at the other family sitting in the restaurant and noticed they were looking at us. I noticed they didn’t have their food yet and then it hit me that we were eating their dinner.

So Susan comes back to the table and we have both just figured out what happened. So eventually we (Susan) goes over to the other people and apologizes and offers to buy them dinner, but they declined and were pretty nice about it. Eventually “our” order came out and the other people got it. Then the woman behind the counter brought over our rolls and veggies and then told us that she owed us another 15 wings. I told her not to worry about it but she said “you paid for it” so we picked some random flavor and off she went. To break the ice I hollered to the other family, “Hey, you got great taste in wings — your dinner is delicious!” They laughed and said, “yours is too!”

Between the awkwardness of eating someone else’s dinner, the continuous flow of unsavory characters piling into the restaurant, and the two older black women sitting behind us who thought our dinner mix-up was hilarious and kept getting up and running toward the counter every time someone else’s name was called so we wouldn’t steal anyone else’s food, Susan decided she’d had enough and we boxed the rest of the wings up to have at home. (35 was way overkill, by the way; I think we have 20 left over.)

Next time, we’re going to Buffalo Wild Wings. It’s safer, cleaner, and they bring your food directly to your table, which may be a better system for us (hah).