I recently installed a new application on my computer called Leap which is kind of a tagging, find it, organize it application. It does things we all wish the Mac Finder did, by itself. I found this blog post from December 29, 2001, I thought I'd share.

One evening, my dad took us to Jack Baker's Lobster Shanty, a little family-style seafood restaurant in Rio, Florida. You can read the entire history of the place on their website, if you like. I'll save myself the trouble. But my dad orders chicken. Seems odd, wouldn't you think, for a seafood place? Then he only eats half, and claims he's sick. My mom blames it on the corn fritters which she adored. They had been fried, you see, and my dad doesn't react well to fried foods. I had a crab cake and shrimp, and my mom ordered the entire fried shrimp dinner. At Jack's, you get a choice of salad bar or chowder with your meal, and a seemingly complimentary little scoop of cole slaw. Odd, we thought. But my mom started on those hush puppies, pretty much ignored the slaw, and joined us at the salad bar. But come time for the entrees, she was unsure she could finish the large platter. I admit, I was pretty full upon finishing mine. It was decent food, not gourmet, but a worthy dinner. My mom--and this is the interesting part--claimed she was "done" when the waitress came to clear plates. She said, "Oh-- you're done?!" in a half-believed kind of way. The thing was, my mom's plate was at first glance still very full. But upon close inspection, you could see that she had cleanly bitten-off only the tips of the shrimp. When questioned, "I don't want to eat the tail." Hmm. Seems to me you could divide a fried shrimp into thirds: tip, middle, and tail. But out of a petrid fear of getting to close to that handle of a tail (and I've known some Filipinos who eat the tail), she only ate the tips. It could have been said, "Oh, there's a lemon-scented meal o' SHRIMP TIPS over at table 4..." So yes, my mom only ate a third of her shrimp, the tips.

So, the next time you invite my mom over for a catered affair, be ready to sink an awful lot of money into shrimp tips, because she'll leave the rest.