McGee: Mystery around restaurant's closing remains

The Lady of the House and I went road trippin' to a town over 75 miles from here. The town shall remain un-named for reasons that will become obvious to you.

One of the things we wanted to do was eat at a small restaurant we liked in the downtown section of this little burg.

The place was out of business.

A bit later at a nearby shop I asked the woman behind the counter about the restaurant.

"Oh, the Health Department shut them down a few months ago," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

The woman looked from side to side.

"I'm not the gossip police, really, I'm just curious," I said.

"I can't say," she said. I had failed to win her confidence.

"Was it a cockroach in the soup?" I asked. "You know, I found a cockroach in my soup one time."

The woman's eyes opened wide and she did this twisty thing with her mouth.

"Yeah, it was at this buffet restaurant back east. I had a bowl of won-ton soup and went back for seconds. I stirred the stuff up to try and get more won-tons from the bottom and up comes this big cockroach, legs folded, dead as can be."

"I started laughing," I continued. "I mean I'd just had this whole bowl of soup with essence of cockroach in it so it didn't matter. I went and got the owner and with a smile on my face I stirred up the cockroach for him to see. I got my lunch for free."

The woman behind the counter just stared at me.

"So it wasn't a cockroach in the soup?" I asked again.

"I-I really can't say," she said.

I suppose I'll never know why that little restaurant got shut down.

Maybe it wasn't a cockroach, maybe it was a hair in someone's soup.

Grant McGee is a long-time broadcaster and former truck driver who rides bicycles and likes to talk about his many adventures on the road of life.

Contact him at: [email protected].