Is it too much to ask for accurate answers to menu questions?

The sign out in front of Blustery’s, with the Columbia beyond it. (Pardon the quality; this is a cell phone photo.

Last night, I had dinner at Blustery’s Drive In in Vantage, WA. It’s a burger joint right off the interstate (I-90), just west of the bridge over the Columbia River (Wanapum Lake). I like the place. It has personality. And it has great burgers. I go there for the “Logger” burger, which is a burger topped with bacon, ham, cheese, and a fried egg.

As I ordered at the counter, I considered a side order with my burger. I asked about the onion rings. I like them batter dipped, not breaded. When I asked which they were, I was told they were breaded. I had sweet potato fries instead (which were excellent).

After dinner, I wanted ice cream. (Can you understand why I will never lose weight?) The girl at the counter offered hot fudge. Last time, I’d asked for it but was told they didn’t have any. I love hot fudge, so I went with it.

“Whipped cream and nuts?” she asked.

“Is the whipped cream real cream?”

“Yes,” she assured me.

“Okay, I’ll take some. But no nuts.”

I paid and waited for her to prepare the sundae I didn’t need. As I waited, an order of onion rings came out of the kitchen. Batter-dipped onion rings.

Now it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between breaded and batter dipped onion rings. These were definitely not breaded. They were batter-dipped. And they looked pretty good — not even very greasy.

Okay, so she’d made a mistake. No biggie.

I glanced at the girl making my sundae. She’d taken something out of a microwave and was pouring it into the bottom of a sundae dish. It was very runny. Hot fudge doesn’t usually get that consistency.

She added soft-serve ice cream and topped it off with more runny brown stuff. Then she disappeared into the back. When she returned, there was creamy white stuff and a maraschino cherry on top. She handed it over.

I dug into the cream. Or perhaps I should say “creme.” It wasn’t a dairy product. It tasted suspiciously like Cool Whip. Ick. I scooped it all off into a napkin.

I worked the spoon again. This time, I came up with some ice cream and chocolate syrup. The ice cream was melted; the syrup was cold. It was definitely not hot fudge. It was microwave-warmed chocolate syrup which had cooled back down after melting a good bit of the ice cream.

Don’t get me wrong — I ate it. Chocolate syrup is the next best thing to hot fudge in my book.

But is it too much to expect the people who work there to know what they’re serving me? Could the waitress possibly mistake Cool Whip and chocolate syrup for whipped cream and hot fudge?

Reminds me of the breakfast we had in a small town on the road one day. Mike asked the waitress if the blueberry pancakes are good.

“They’re great,” she assured us. “The blueberries are fresh. They just opened the can this morning.”