Jilly's

Dateline: Columbus, Georgia; 1991.

Jilly's (duh duh) Jilly's is the place for ribs. At least it was. There is very little information to be found for the steakhouse on Macon Road, situated in a strip mall. It was "the nice place" to go when my friends and I had a little extra money. Looking back, it was weird for two 17 year old girls to go out for prime rib, and neither of us was hooking. I don't recall ever going somewhere this upscale with a date, Red Lobster being the pinnacle non-prom date restaurant. Either way, Cassie and I hit Jilly's fairly often. Another weird fact, I used to order my prime rib medium RARE. I must have had great blood back then, these days the slightest hint of pink in the middle makes me gag. Jilly's is also where I discovered my love for horseradish. But these are all just minor factual memories of the place that will be always be known as "The place where I started to hate people."

Cassie and I brought along her uncle on one of our excursions. This sounds creepier than it was. Greg was only 7 years older than us, plus he had a convertible Mustang. Greg was a frequent guest star, as he was hilarious and loved to shop. I suppose I should mention that this was a few years before Greg came out of the closet. It was Christmas and we were all set for an evening of shopping at Peachtree Mall. We stopped at Jilly's for a prime rib fix. The three of us were promptly seated in a booth, where we had a view of the booths on the other side of the dining room. We laughed and talked. Probably a little too loud, but nothing outside of normal. When the three of us got together, it was on and to this day, I have never laughed so hard as I did when they got me going. Across the way, a family was trying to corral their young children. Even then, I detested children, especially ill mannered kids. These hellions were running amok, and I witnessed one of the children run up to a table of strangers and touch someone's plate at the table. Cassie saw it too and we were like, "WTF?" (before WTF) Greg craned his neck around the booth to see what we were looking at, and caught the eye of the hellion's mother. Our food arrived and we soon forgot about the ill mannered family. Every time I looked up, the mother was staring at us. Not wanting to cause a scene (when you are raised by an alcoholic, you tend to master scene avoidance techniques.) I stared at my bloody plate. I stared at the bread basket. I stared at the rich corinthian leather on the booths. What happened next happened so fast, I couldn't even catch my breath.

Cassie leans over and says, "That bitch needs to quit looking over here." I shrugged, but inside I felt the same thing. I was about to say something disparaging about her mom jeans, to appease and distract, when Cassie takes a big bite of food, chews it for a moment, then opens her mouth and shows God and everybody (and the rude staring bitch) her cud. I saw that, then followed the imaginary line of vision directly to the rude mom who can't control her rude kid's eyes. I had a mixture of admiration for Cassie for giving the bitch her due and nervous bile at the omnious confrontation. Greg was clueless to the drama unfolding, as he was busy rending the mediocre meat from the bone. All of a sudden, the woman was standing at our table. We three look up at her, all with WTF expressions, and she says, "Did you girls learn your manners in a barn?" Only she had a British accent, so it sounded like, "Deed you gahls learn yore mannuhs in a baun?" Greg was dumbfounded. I was mortified. Cassie was indignant. Only Cassie found her voice in the exchange and exclaimed, "Who is SHE talking too?!" That's it. That's the witty comeback. The woman disappeared and we were left to debrief amongst ourselves. And that's when all the witty comebacks spewed forth. Our incredulous group spent the next 4 hours coming up with even better replies. The frustration in the convertible was so thick we had to let the top down on the way home (December in GA...not that cold.) The injustice was maddening.

Twenty years later, as I reconstruct the scene, I still get a little pissed off. Was Cassie wrong to show her food? Probably. Was the woman wrong to approach our table? Sure. Should she have used birth control? Yes. Would I change any detail of that evening? Nope. That night has been fodder for the three of us for twenty years. Jilly's closed down a few years later. I have no idea what went into the strip mall to replace it. Jilly's was a chain, and chain steakhouses soon exploded all over the scene: Longhorn, Texas Roadhouse, Logan's, Outback, and so on. There are even "nice" places where you can eat peanuts and just throw the shells right on the floor, which I am not an advocate for. Great as these places may be, they can never replace the original bad manners dining experience, where you can get a side of rudeness with your $12.95 prime rib.

But you better act fast...it is a limited time offer.