The Tripe Ration

It’s a household tradition around here to take a child out for ice cream on the night before his birthday. Accordingly, I took one of them the other day to Baskin-Robbins, and I also took the opportunity to see how a local Tri-Citian would satisfy my insatiable desire for surprises.

Me

The boy here would like a single scoop of “Mint Chocolate Chip” on a sugar cone. And for myself, I’d like you to surprise me. Anything on the menu is fair game!

CSR

(looks down meekly and laughs to himself) uhm, okay. Uh, would you like it in a cone or a bowl?

Me

Your call! Surprise me!

CSR

(smiles nervously)

This was a curious experience, because the fellow behind the counter almost seemed embarrassed about the whole thing. It was as if my asking him to surprise me was like asking him to hold my purse while I used the restroom. Not that I have a purse. Or that I would ask anyone to hold it if I did.

After getting past the initial social awkwardness of someone asking to be blindly surprised, the kind man handed me a single scoop of “Salty Caramel” ice cream on a sugar cone.

Scoring Breakdown: Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream

	Score	Comments
Audacity		Frankly, the poor fellow seemed rather meek and apologetic. He literally avoided eye contact with me as soon as I’d asked to be surprised. Then he asked me about my preferences (cone vs bowl, when I didn’t even limit him to ice cream), and finally he chose a fairly safe flavor – caramel in vanilla ice cream.
Reaction		I give the server a neutral on this one because while he did seem embarrassed about the thing, at least he smiled and laughed a little instead of heaving a sigh and looking toward heaven.
Discovery		I probably wouldn’t have ordered Salty Caramel among other choices, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary as far as ice cream goes.
Satisfaction		I doubt I’ll order Salty Caramel again; other ice cream flavors are much more interesting.

Overall score: -2. This might be a little harsh, but I really was expecting more from Baskin-Robbins – they have all kinds of weird flavors and odd stuff on the menu. This didn’t really broaden my taste horizons.

Observations to Date

I have only completed four of these little vignettes, but already I am beginning to detect patterns.

1. Safety bets. Nobody has yet given me anything that would remotely qualify as being “off the beaten path” (except possibly the “Grandma’s Cake Batter” ice cream, but I’m informed that cake-batter-flavored stuff is a “thing” now, so apparently it’s on the beaten path). People seem more eager to minimize risk than to offer me something potentially unpleasant.

2. Nobody else does this. Maybe I’m way off base here, but I would have thought servers would encounter this type of thing more often. I’m a pretty boring person, so surely other more exciting folks must ask for surprises occasionally? Server reactions thus far suggest that the answer to that is “no.”

Let the surprises continue! Being that I do not wish to spend exorbitant amounts of money going out to eat all the time, I am devising creative new ways to apply this methodology of surprise. Stay tuned.

Sleepy Monk Coffee is a bustling little coffee shop in downtown Cannon Beach where all the stim junkies get their cuppa. They don’t have a drive-through and we were en route to Ocean Park for a heavy day of family reuning, so I sent Mystie inside while I waited with the kids in the rustbucket van. I instructed Mystie to either request the barista to surprise me or take it upon herself to choose the surprise herself at her discretion. (Sort of a surprise within a surprise, if you follow me.) Mystie chose to let the barista do the surprising, and she afterward reported that the latter, when informed that this customer sought assistance in pushing the boundaries of everyday existence, took on an attitude suggestive of an underlying “Are you serious? There are customers waiting in line” sentiment.

While it is true that there were customers waiting in line, this author hardly thinks that justifies the completely mundane mocha which resulted from the experiment.

Scoring Breakdown: Sleepy Monk Coffee

	Score	Comments
Audacity		A mocha is essentially the seafood sampler of a coffee shop. What patron of coffee shops *doesn’t* like a mocha?
Reaction		Expressing even the slightest hint or vague sense of hopeless negativity and fatalism when confronted by a surprise is completely unacceptable.
Discovery		I’ve had numerous mochas in my lifetime, and I am even wont to order them on occasion when feeling particularly dull. This surprise held nothing new for me whatsoever.
Satisfaction		As far as mochas go, this one was completely ordinary in every respect. Definitely not something I would order again from a hippy downtown fair-trade organic coffee shop. (Their coffee beans were actually pretty good, albeit a touch on the pricey side at roughly twice the cost per pound of my usual inorganic beans. We got a bag for free with the vacation rental.)

Overall score for the Sleepy Monk: -3, a pretty awful surprise. I would advise you to avoid requesting surprises here and just order something that sounds good. On a completely random note, I also just ate a Dove chocolate whose wrapper told me that I “should charge for your great advice”. If the chocolate peddlers think so, then it must be true. I’d best set about establishing a mechanism for doing so here. Consider this piece of advice to be the “first one”, which I am reliably informed is always free.

We always go to Mo’s when we’re at Cannon Beach, because it’s delicious and family-friendly and it’s on the beach with a nice view and we hardly ever eat seafood. I almost always order something tame, like clam chowder or such. This time I was determined to be surprised!

Waitress

And what would you like?

Me

I’d like you to surprise me.

Waitress

You’d like what now? (I sensed a recurring theme starting here. Serving staff seem surprised to learn that a patron wishes to be surprised.)

Me

I’d like you to surprise me. Anything on the menu is fine, but no hamburgers and I’m too hungry for a salad alone.

Waitress

Okay! Well that’s the first time in 8 years this has happened. You ought to get a prize or something!

For the record, I did not in fact get a prize. However, I did get a delicious plate of fried cod fish-and-chips, which the waitress explained is something they make right there at the restaurant. (It was not immediately clear to me what they don’t make at the restaurant. Perhaps she meant it was local fish or something, or that they ship their clam chowder from Wisconsin dehydrated in plastic bags.)

Scoring Breakdown: Mo’s Restaurant

	Score	Comments
Audacity		No samplers, which is good, but no raw oysters either, resulting in a middle-of-the-road score. Fish-and-chips is unquestionably a safety bet as far as seafood surprises go.
Reaction		This waitress really seemed to get into the spirit of the thing. Once she understood what I wanted, there was no faffing about with trying to figure out what I would actually enjoy. I received the impression of having brought a small ray of sunshine into her otherwise predictable day.
Discovery		I would have been very likely to order fish-and-chips if I was not seeking high adventure, and in fact I think I may have even done so several years ago.
Satisfaction		The fish-and-chips were quite good, I would definitely order them again.

Overall score: +1. This was a good experience, which is paradoxically not surprising, because Mo’s is always a good experience.

Bonus Surprise: Burly Motorcycle Gangsters!

I don’t think this was related to my efforts, but midway through the meal the restaurant was invaded by a horde of rather seasoned individuals whose bepatched leather jackets and stern looks proclaimed to be members of a “motorcycle club” whose logo prominently featured skulls and revolvers. There were at least thirty of these intimidating characters, and I began to wonder if this was a hostile takeover of poor Mo’s establishment. I would have snapped a picture of the scene, but I chose not to for two very prudent reasons: a) I didn’t have a camera, and b) I once read some extraordinarily sage advice which told me “never snap a photo of a man who can snap you”.

It is probably best not to apply our scoring scale to the incident of the motorcycle gang, as this here Internet is becoming full of more and more kinds of people and you never can tell how a hardened motorcyclist would take a thing like that. Therefore, I will leave it to your imagination.

It is a frail constitution that will never stray from the familiar and the comfortable. If no other experiences offer contrast to the familiar, the familiar is no longer comfortable but confining.

This I have brooded on for some time, and last week whilst on holiday at the beach I realized that the situation demanded action. It began at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, where I found myself realizing that I only ever order their Brown Cow white-and-brown chocolate ice cream. (I believe it goes by some different name now, yet another victim to the brazen branding fanatics, but in my heart it shall always remain Brown Cow.) It is delicious, but it is routine. What of the other thirty-some-odd flavors on the menu? I resolved to order a three-scoop sampler and expand my tastes.

But almost immediately, I realized this was not enough. Were I left to my own devices, I would simply order three other flavors that sounded good to me. How could I make the experience more interesting? I girded up my loins and readied myself for high adventure: a mission to be surprised.

Anatomy of a Surprise

Here are the rules of what will become a semi-regular feature on this blog, the surprise experience. When the opportunity presents itself at a restaurant or other similar establishment wherein there are many suitable choices, I shall ask my host/server/proprietor to surprise me, and I will score the experience on four metrics outlined below: Audacity, Reaction, Discovery, and Satisfaction.

But firstly, a few ground rules.

Ground Rules

1. I am allowed to rule out certain mundane options from the available choices, provided they do not meaningfully reduce the surprise factor. For example, when dining at Mo’s, I may specify “no burgers” when requesting the surprise, since although being served a burger at Mo’s would doubtless be surprising, I am loath to squander a rare opportunity to eat seafood on the beach.

2. I will only conduct the experiment in suitable locations. An example of an unsuitable location would be a Jack-in-the-Box drive through with a semi-literate person on the other end of the talking box.

3. I am allowed to set a price range if circumstances demand it. For instance, in my current state of fiscal affairs, I would rather not be surprised by a $200 bottle of wine.

The Script

Pursuant of consistency in the scoring of surprises, I will follow a script as closely as possible when requesting surprises. It goes like this:

(Waiter) And what would you like?

(Self) I would like you to surprise me. Anything on the menu is fair game. [Insert any applicable exceptions or clarifications here, such as “an entree” or “no hamburgers”.] [Optionally insert additional items to include, such as a surprise drink.]

Scoring System

The scoring scale ranges from -1 to +1. Each surprise will be scored on the following four metrics:

1. Audacity. This is a measure of the server’s willingness to be courageous and choose something bold he thinks I will like (or dislike), rather than trying to compromise on middle-of-the-road options. For instance, a server at a restaurant who delivers a sampler platter of their common foods would receive -1: weak sauce. A server who delivers a raw oyster shooter, on the other hand, knows what a surprise is all about and would definitely receive +1 for his sheer audacity.

2. Reaction. This is the server’s apparent willingness to play along. Any questions about my preferences after I request to be surprised (e.g. “Do you like X?”) will result in a -1. An eagerness to play along and/or general enthusiasm at the idea of choosing what to sell a customer receives +1.

3. Discovery. This measure is inversely proportional to the likelihood I would have ordered the surprise item myself. Thus, if the Tillamook Cheese Factory gives me a scoop of Brown Cow, discover would be -1. If they give me a scoop of “Grandma’s Cake”, they get +1, because nobody in their right mind orders a scoop of “Grandma’s Cake” ice cream.

4. Satisfaction. This measure is directly proportional to the likelihood I will ever order the surprise item again.

Thus, the Platonic surprise would receive a score of +4. An utterly mundane surprise delivered by a cranky nihilist would receive -4.

With the rules set and the scoring explained, let us proceed to our first surprise, conducted during my vacation at Cannon Beach.

Inaugural Surprise: Tillamook Cheese Factory

Following lunch at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, we proceeded to the ice cream bar where I proceeded to order several items for the children, and then my own turn came.

Me

And I would like a 3-scoop sampler, and I want you to surprise me with the flavors. (This was before I came up with a script.)

Cashier

You want what?

Me

Surprise me. Pick any three flavors, except no orange sherbet.

Cashier

Okay…how about I’ll pick my three favorites.

Me

Sounds fine.

Cashier

Do you like nuts?

Me

Nuts are fine.

With that, she proceeded to pick Marionberry, “Grandma’s Cake Batter”, and Caramel Butter Pecan.

Scoring Breakdown: Tillamook Cheese Factory

	Score	Comments
Audacity		This wasn’t really a good test, because I limited her to a 3-scoop sampler. However, her choices within that confinement were reasonably audacious, so she gets a score of neutral.
Reaction		She had to confirm that I wanted a surprise and she also asked about what I liked.
Discovery		I never would have ordered Grandma’s Cake Batter. No sane person does.
Satisfaction		Marionberry was okay, Caramel Butter Pecan was all right (too much butter and not enough caramel), and Grandma’s Cake Batter was downright horrible. I’ve never eaten a grandma’s cake batter when not otherwise baked into a cake, and I certainly have no inclination to start now. Good thing I was sharing my dessert with 2-year-old Knox, who had no apparent objections to eating cake-batter-flavored ice cream.

Overall, the Tillamook Ice Cream Surprise scores a flat zero: not bad for a first try, but nothing really out of the ordinary as surprises go.

The Unsurprising Conclusion

This is only the beginning. As I mentioned, my goal is to make surprises a recurring theme around here. I have two additional vacation surprises already catalogued and coming soon, but a rather practical problem remains beyond those: I rarely make these kinds of purchases when not on vacation, so opportunities for surprise may be few and far between. Nevertheless, I shall keep my eyes open for them. I hope to culminate this series someday in years to come with a “Surprise me” visit to a travel agency. When I do, you’ll be sure to hear of it.