The Day I Turned into a Chilli's Dessert Plate
/Scott Larimore
Growing up in a small Missouri town there were three things to do: go hiking, speculate
about the weather, and eat at Chili’s. Every now and then we’d have a tornado too, but those
three were the main activities in my small town. Chili’s particularly was my favorite.
It was a family tradition to go every Friday. I was in love with the molten chocolate lava
cake. My entrees would change and so would the appetizers, but my dessert remained steady,
like a good marriage. I wasn’t tempted by the chocolate chip cookie and the cheesecake did little
to sway me. I was loyal to the molten chocolate lava cake.
The last day I ever ate it, I was five years old. It was a Friday afternoon and my parents
took me out to Chili’s because I managed to go a whole week in kindergarten without urinating
myself. It was a big deal, for both me and my bladder.
My dad told me I could either order an appetizer or a dessert. Of course, I chose dessert.
For my entree I ordered the chicken tenders. My dad ordered the honey barbecue ribs and my
mom ordered the chicken caesar salad. They speculated about the grey clouds outside as we
waited for our food.
Finally, the lava cake was delivered. It left my prepubescent brain overstimulated and
gob smacked every time I saw it. Just ten minutes ago, this was a frozen block that would’ve
been deemed a murder weapon depending on how hard you threw it and now; it was a soft and
bouncy piece of pre-made perfection. My parents graciously allowed me to eat the whole thing.
They were proud that I had roped my bladder in like a runaway bull. I deserved this.
As I ate, my mother went to the bathroom and my father saw a friend of his a few tables
over and went to say hello. I was left alone. I scraped the last bit of chocolate sauce off the plate
and sloshed the last piece of cake between my cheeks to stretch out every bit of flavor. A thought
hit me then. A thought that could only hit a five-year-old after eating sugar. I wished that I could
be this Chili’s dessert plate so I could always experience the wonders of the molten chocolate
lava cake. I would no longer have to worry about the overbearing responsibility that is
kindergarten. I wouldn’t have to worry about learning to write the English language, learning
how to interact with other children and make friends, or how to safely use scissors. All that
would be a thing of the past. It would be an honor to have a molten chocolate lava cake rest upon
me.
And then the most peculiar thing happened: I did turn into a Chili’s dessert plate. My
mother and father returned to see a circle of white porcelain on the chair I sat in. They were
dumbfounded. The whole restaurant began looking for me. They checked under the tables,
checked in the bathroom, checked in the kitchen, checked outside. One senile old man even
checked under the Chili’s dessert plate I transformed into.
I began to scream; they could not hear me.
I began to move; they could not see me.
My parents called the police. They searched the Chili’s too. My mother was hysterical
when even they couldn’t find me, but they kept telling her I’d be found. “He’ll turn up,” they
kept saying, as if I was a lost sock hiding behind the dresser.
Soon after, the police left and my parents hovered at the front door as if they knew that
walking out meant admitting that I really was gone. The search would become much larger the
second they stepped outside. A waitress cleaned up our table and I was carried away, sandwiched
between the plates of my mom’s salad and my dad’s ribs. I watched them at the door. I screamed
out to them, but I was carried off into the kitchen and my parents carried themselves out the door
to look for me in the big world.
The first week was the hardest. I was not used to being a dessert plate at all. Not even
slightly. I had never thought about what kind of life a plate would lead. It was a lonely and
abusive one.
During the day, I acted as a rain catcher for all the saliva and food that fell out of patrons’
mouths. I was shoved across the table, banging against other plates. I was stabbed by forks and
knives. Nobody treated me delicately. I was simply a thing.
The people who ordered the molten chocolate lava cake were horrible. The worst were
the children. They licked me, they spit on me, they hit me. Some of them even said I was ugly.
Weirdly enough, those comments hurt the most even though I had only been in my plate body for
a week.
One man ordered me as an apology to his girlfriend for making out with an exotic dancer.
The crazy part was it worked. And the even crazier part? The week after I was delivered to his
table again and across from him was an exotic dancer. She was sweet. He was not.
It was day after day of getting used by strangers. I was simply a vehicle for people to
shove cake into their mouth. I knew it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been a fork or God
forbid, a straw. Still, that first week was the hardest time in my life, especially because every
now and then I saw my parents come in. The staff said they were still looking for me. They felt
bad for them. One waitress said my mother’s face looked broken. Her constant worried
expression had turned wrinkles to cracks in just a week’s time. Those were hard words to hear,
especially as you’re being loaded into a dishwasher. Which I was. Heavy Cycle.
The nights were awful too. It was dark and lonely in the restaurant. The only light that
seeped through were the eyes of cars driven by families along the road. They were flashes of a
life I could’ve had. In those hours when I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and was surrounded
only by silverware, dishes, and silence, part of me missed the abuse from strangers.
As the weeks went by, I got used to my role. Part of me even began enjoying it. There
were regular customers who I became quite attached to. One such woman was a mom of three
who always brought a rubber fork for her youngest son because he scratched and hit the plates
with the metal ones. It was a small gesture, but it meant the world to me. Another person I grew
to love was a man in his fifties who ordered me every Friday without fail. He was a single man,
no children. I was something nice to comfort him every week and he for me too. He could count
on me to hold his warm delicious dessert and I could count on seeing his droopy smile every
time I was set down in front of him. That’s what really made me start enjoying it. I finally
noticed that every time they saw me coming towards their table, they smiled. It was a nice
existence to be greeted with a smile.
For twenty years I lived like this. I was unable to move and unable to speak, but I was
able to make people happy. I was able to listen to the lives of customers, staff members,
managers. I saw busboys turn into waiters, waiters turn into managers, and managers turn back
into waiters after they realized how awful managing was. I saw customers go from fathers to
grandfathers, mothers to grandmothers, children turned into men and women. I watched a whole
life of people grow up and I got to help them do it. More importantly, I wanted to keep doing it. I
was used to being a plate and I felt more at home as porcelain than as flesh.
But all the changed one Monday morning. Staff unloaded trucks from outside and inside
were brand new dining sets. All I could do is watch as they happily unpacked my replacements. I
wanted to call the new set ugly or old-fashioned but I couldn’t do it. I was plain white. I was old-
fashioned. The new plates were bright red and they even had the Chili’s logo imprinted in the
center. To be honest, I had never felt more self-conscious in my entire life than I did sat side-by-
side the new dinnerware.
That Monday night was going to be my last dinner service. The next day they were going
to wheel in the new set of dinner plates for good and I would be thrown in the dumpster or
worse, donated. It was over.
The noises of the night began. Silverware fought against food, kitchen staff cursed at one
another, and hundreds of conversations bounced off every single wall, every table, and every
plate, including me.
I was first served to a young couple. I could tell it was still a new thing because the boy
choked down a burp and the girl said she was full after only eating two mouse-sized bites of
chocolate lava cake. They were both so nervous. I wondered what the future held for them.
Would they go out again after this? Would they get married? Would he burp in front of her?
Would she eat freely? Would they come back here some day when they’re older, order a
chocolate lava cake, and reminisce about the moment we all shared? I was picked up by a
waitress before they left. I saw both of them smile at each other. The girl applied chap-stick. The
boy discreetly smelled his breath.
I thought that table was going to be my last. I was placed in the dishwasher with a row of
clean plates ahead of me. But slowly that row became less and less and suddenly I was the next
plate up for pick up. And picked up I was.
A chocolate cake was placed atop me and I was carried out by a waitress. That’s when I
saw them. My parents were sitting at the same table we were at twenty years ago. I almost didn’t
recognize them. They were so much older now. My dad had lost his hair and his gut now reached
out to touch the corner of the table. My mother was a little piece of a person. The cracks in her
face had grown deeper. It seemed as if life had leaked out from every fracture in her skin until
there was none left. It was only twenty years, but it seemed they had aged almost forty. I’ve seen
children age couples during my time here, but none like the loss of a child did to my parents.
They were silent when I was placed down in front of them. As was I. Unlike last time I saw
them, I didn’t try to scream out to them.
I hadn’t realized until now how much I missed them. I rarely felt the need to be human
anymore, but this was different. I wanted to feel myself disappear into their embrace. I wanted to
rub my thumb along the cracks on my mother’s face and fill them for just a moment with my
touch. But I couldn’t. So I sat there and watched as they picked up their forks and began to eat
off me.
It was the most beautiful moment of my life. They were so gentle. There was not one
scrape against my porcelain skin or one stab with the prong of their fork. My father’s fork
touched me and it felt as if he was rubbing the top of my head after a day at school. When my
mother did it, it was like I was a baby again and she was tickling my feet so softly that I felt a
shiver of affection down my whole body.
I began to cry and my tears came out in the form of condensation. My mother and father
looked at each other when drops of water fell off the side of me, but they kept eating and I’m
glad they did. Finally, they finished and they placed their forks gently on top of me in a
crisscross formation.
My mother sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. My father saw a friend of his across
the restaurant, but he only waved this time. My mother took a deep breath.
My dad answered her sigh by placing his hand on hers and stroking the skin on her
fingers that had become two sizes too big for the little bones in her hand. I wish I could tell her
that I was alright. That I had done something with my time here and her little boy had made the
best out of the life she had given him and the stupid wish he made when he was five years old. I
think that may have breathed a little something back into her if I could’ve done that. But I
couldn’t. So I watched my parents mourn me in front of me.
A short while later the waitress came back and asked them if they were finished. They
said they were and I was carried back into the kitchen.
It suddenly felt okay to go now. There was a reason my parents came that night and it
was to wish me goodbye whether they knew it or not. I did. And that was enough.
The restaurant closed and the staff drank some liquor they found in the manager’s office.
They thought it would be fun to give the old dishware a proper send off and so they took us
outside to the parking lot.
One by one, they threw us out into the dark Missouri night and watched as white
porcelain sprayed across the black tar of the parking lot. It was a night sky on the ground. Each
piece of porcelain reflected against the moonlight and acted as winking stars. The same waitress
that served me to my parents earlier that night picked me up. She gripped me tightly and brought
me back behind her head. I closed my eyes and smiled. I was ready to join that night sky and
shatter into a hundred little stars.
Bio: Scott Larimore is a writer from St. Louis who enjoys writing small, funny stories from his small, funny apartment.
