> My wife tells me about a restaurant in Lexington, Mass called Chadwicks. It seems they are extraordinarily enthusiastic (read: obnoxious) when it comes to birthdays. They do the happy laughing clapping singing thing and bring you a free sundae, but apparently they also bang a huge gong and announce loudly throughout the entire restaurant that it is SO AND SO's BIRTHDAY!!!!
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I didn't tell the whole story of T.G.I. Friday's birthday thing, so I figure I'll do so now.

T.G.I. Friday's usually hires... hrm... silly waitpersons. (Prime example: Mike Nelson of MST3K fame used to work there back in the day.) Even on normal days, you get a good dose of weirdness. I don't mind, since I'm weird too, but birthdays are a little much.

First, the balloons. Usually about four or five of them. One balloon is tied around each wrist, and the remaining balloons are tied to hair (if available) or ears.

Then, they get all the waitpersons around, and they YELL out that it's your birthday to the whole restaurant, and SHOUT the birthday song really, really loudly. So everyone in the restaurant turns and looks at you, with your hair going straight up because it's tied to several balloons.

They're lucky that they don't have Huge Knives (tm).



On the other hand, I can mention a birthday restaurant experience that was quite pleasant. As a combination graduation/anniversary thing in 1999 (my high school graduation, my sister's jr. high graduation, my parents' 25 anniversary), the whole family went on a cruise to Alaska. It was fantastic, and totally ruling.

Anyway, my sister's birthday happened to come along while we were on the cruise. Now, in the dining room where dinner is served, each tabel has a personal waiter, whose job it is to take your orders, bring your food, and generally cater to your every food need. (It's an extremely luxurious experience, to say the least.) So, on my sister's birthday, he brought up a lovely cake of her favorite kind, with the right number of candles and her name on it. Some of the waitpersons from the other tables came over, and they quietly clapped and softly sang happy birthday in their native language - Indonesian. It was very nice, and not attention-getting or embarrasing at all. And it was cool that the Indonesian happy birthday song has the same tune as the Dutch birthday song (the tune is totally different from Happy Birthday as we know it).

Sosiqui