Are you wearing THAT?

There is one thing I am most certainly not, and that is "fancy." I am uncomfortable in situations that a suit or nice clothes are required. I have one sport coat that I wear, but it doesn't see the exterior of my closet very often. It's one of those funeral/wedding coats. In fact, I'd prefer to be buried in my favorite outfit, jeans and a t-shirt, maybe a big Afro wig on my head, just to make people laugh. I say all of that, to set up my night last night. The guy I'm with suggested we go to a place he had been to before for dinner. He went to the front desk to get directions, but came back with a list of places, and 2 that were starred to choose from. I read the descriptions and knew I was in trouble. The first one said reservations suggested and the other said semi-formal. I'm wearing jeans and a pull over jacket, hardly reservation worthy and most certainly not semi-formal. In fact, you might say I was semi-semi-semi-formal, there wasn't a place on the sheet that suggested that they were more suited to serve me. I had suggested PF Changes, which is right across the street from the hotel, but apparently he wasn't interested. We picked out the reservation place and headed out, without a reservation. When we pulled up, I knew I was in trouble, valet parking. The parking lot was full of BMW's and the like, we have a nice Nissan, but we are self parking. I've never felt so awkward in my life. The attire was suits and at least collard shirts, with dress pants. Here I stroll in with jeans, high society. I looked into the dinning room and saw that it was pretty empty, so I figured we would at least be able to get a table. The guy at the desk was nice enough, but took us down to "the bar" where we were seated. I'm guessing if I was dressed better or if the guy I was with was a girl with nice cleavage, we would be sitting in the dinning room, but I can't say for sure. And Felix most definitely does not have nice cleavage. We were seated in stall two of the mens room. OK, maybe we weren't all the way into the mens room, but we could hold the door open for you. Second thing that made me realize I was out of my element, the wine list was longer than the food menu, by far. The wine list was about 10 pages, the food menu was 2 pages. Luckily, they had a New York Strip steak, which is my favorite cut, so I jumped on that for $32.50. We did get a roll included with that price, so that makes it better. The salad was good and they bring you a topping bar, which consisted of beets, black olives, blue cheese crumbles, croutons and sardines. This had to be the oddest combination I could ever think of. Perhaps this is what "jeans people" eat. Or perhaps they were cleaning out the fridge. Then they brought out a baked potato topping bar, which consisted of melted cheese, sour cream and bacon crumbles. There was all ready butter on the table, so these choices made a lot more sense. My steak was great, the service was fantastic, but we got out as soon as I could get Felix going and my comfort level returned to normal. I hope tonight that we can make a less dressy choice, perhaps I will suggest the White Castle I found, a mere 20 minutes away:)