We Need to Talk About Death and Applebee's

You see, our management periodically gives Applebee's gift cards as prizes in newsroom contests, deep-fried morale boosters coveted among the staff. I have never won one, and not for lack of trying. Applebee's is for everyone, but I can't help but get salty seeing co-workers skating off with MY all-you-can-eat boneless wings, riblets and shrimp.

Those co-workers are cool and youthful! They should hang in vegan tapas bars with chic bathroom wallpaper! I, however, am the Applebee's mark, raised on bleached malls and Kmart layaway. Are chains good? For civilization? Probably not. Probably these companies have exploited workers and paved wetlands and thinned the ozone, and probably I am 16% more likely to die early because I'm not part of a vegetable co-op. But facts are facts. I've left no Chili's unchilled, no Cracker Barrel giant checkers unchecked. I had to marry my husband because he knew the meaning of "sunroom at Rax."

I informed this husband that we had to go to Applebee's. He said, "K."

The Applebee's, which shares a parking lot with a Home Depot, was packed. Wall-to-wall on a Monday! Did they all have the Date Night Pass? It was so busy that a couple stole our seat, claiming to be us when the host called our name. Before you ask, they did not have the same name. This was Applebee's subterfuge.

Surrounded by "2-for-1 ALL DAY EVERY DAY" banners hanging from the drop ceiling, I told my spouse that sitting at work boosts risk of early death by 16%. I told him that I got preoccupied with death in the park. I told him that on the bright side, I saw owls.

"Isn't that the park where the owls were poisoned?" he said.

The host took us to seats in the bar. "There's a Monday burger special," she explained. Her eyes had seen so much.

Imagine a movie moment where reality clicks. I looked around, and every table stood littered with $6.99 burgers and bottomless fries. Customers double-fisted pinot grigio and downed unnaturally blue potables. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to the bartender, who sawed off big globs of sheet cake. Cher warbled from on high, "Do you believe in life after love?"

It's hard to dwell on death when everyone is unapologetically Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood. We ordered the bargain burgers and a themed margarita from the "Breaking Bad" guys. My dour mood faded, drowned by the din of clanking plates and easy listening. Maybe I was dying 16% faster with my backside on the banquette, but the bill for a life-affirming burger in a room of plotting elders was less than $30.

Two days later, we had a work contest. I won an award for writing about my dad's death. I guess that's the reason I've been preoccupied with finality. Why I'm a tad depressed, why bad news leaps off the page and grabs my throat. All of this goes away, the walks and the cats and the owls and the cocktails and the birthday songs and the people you love. Impermanence has crystallized in a way that it hadn't a few months ago.

The win made me eligible for Applebee's bucks. I waited for my name to be plucked out of a bowl, to graciously accept my 860 calories of mozzarella sticks with ranch in exchange for an essay about death. What a tidy bow that would be. Alas, no seamless ending came.

It's all right, though. Stomaching life's darker days is a practice that takes patience. It takes long, gloomy walks. Sometimes, it takes responsibility for one's own chicken tenders. As a consolation prize, I entered myself in a drawing for a chance to buy one of 1,000 additional Applebee's Date Night Passes. For a limited time only.

========

Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on Twitter or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

----