Olive Garden - January 20, 2002

I'm not a chain restaurant guy. I've never liked chain restaurants.

Growing up in New Jersey, in particular I never saw the point of The Olive Garden. You can throw a rock in Northern New Jersey and hit a dozen great Italian restaurants. Why would you voluntarily go to a chain restaurant that is inferior to one of the great local Italian eateries and wait in line for an hour to subject yourself to the inferior experience? It never made any sense to me. Chain restaurants are for when you're on a business trip in the middle of nowhere and it's the only game in town.

Twelve and a half years ago I went to The Olive Garden. My then-girlfriend Colleen (now my wife) and I had been dating for about a year and were moving into our first place together where both our names were on the lease (she had unofficially lived with me for about six months, which is another story for another day). It was only about a three mile move, but we didn't hire movers and by the end of the day we were exhausted. Even though we had only moved three miles away, we didn't know the new area at all so we decided to go to The Olive Garden because it was close. I should also point out that this was right around our anniversary so this dinner was going to be our anniversary dinner.

We walked in and the wait for a Saturday night wasn't bad at all: only 20-30 minutes. I don't like waiting at restaurants but - again - I was fucking tired after a long day of moving furniture and boxes and at this point didn't care. I wanted something quick and simple and then I wanted to go home so I could sleep.

The crowd that was waiting was the usual group of suburbanites waiting to eat at an Olive Garden on a Sunday night. I didn't give the crowd much thought...until I saw a near altercation. A middle aged guy walked past a young dude in his early 20s and nearly bumped into him. It looked like one of those near misses that sometimes happens in a crowded area. If it happens to you, the typical reaction is to shrug, maybe say something under your breath, and go on about your life.

Not this guy, though. "What the fuck?!" he yelled, a little too loud for a public setting, to one of his buddies. "Did you see that? That guy almost knocked me over? What the hell? Get up out my business!"

His friend agreed, uttered some similar macho nonsense, and also said "get up out my business." Shortly after this, this unpleasant party of six was seated and I thought that was that. It was a little weird, but I figured we'd never see these yahoos again.

Unfortunately it wasn't the end of that. Five to 10 minutes later Colleen and I were seated and found ourselves in the same section as these winners. This was our own fault because back then both of us were smokers (BOO, I know) and these guys were also smokers. As we settled into our section, I could tell that the obnoxious behavior from these guys hadn't just been a bad moment in the waiting area but was pretty much a regular part of their lifestyle.

These guys were loud. They were drinking margaritas and talking like they were outside at a barbeque, not inside in a restaurant.

The loudness wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part is that these morons were going on and on like the non-altercation in the waiting area was the moment of their lives where wishy-washy indecisiveness should be replaced with action and they should find the guy that nearly bumped their friend and teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget.

"Did you SEE that guy? He just walked up right past me, almost bumped me and didn't say nothing. Get up out my business! Who the hell did he think he was? Where is he sitting? I'm going to find him and teach him a lesson. Get up out my BUSINESS!"

Get up out my business was a pretty big expression with these guys. They kept saying it over and over and over. It sounded inane enough the first time I heard it. By the fiftieth time I heard it I wanted to scream. Also, these guys were getting more and more animated every time they said the words "get up out my business." It could also have been my imagination, but by the fiftieth time they uttered the words "get up out my business" these guys were jumping up and down around the table and pantomiming the event.

Colleen and I were doing that whole thing where we were trying to ignore their behavior even though it was impossible to do so. Since that was impossible, the next logical step was to make fun of these idiots under our breath. After a few minutes of this, I let out a nervous laugh that was a little too loud.

My laugh shifted the attention of the Get Up Out My Business boys from the injustice in the waiting area to me. There was a moment of silence and two of them glared at me. It was not a comfortable moment. Fortunately, it was also a short moment; we were saved by their food coming to the table. Once the food came, they forgot about us and they started the imaginary incident in the waiting area.

For years, we talked about the guys who came to be known as the Get Up Out My Business boys. We joked that The Olive Garden should hire these guys to go from Olive Garden to Oliver Garden across the country as a form of live entertainment. The funniest part of the tale to me is that I have never heard the phrase Get Up Out My Business uttered before or since.