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8 JAN 04: HE WHO HESITATES

It wasn't Scrabble night, or even day - but I returned Wednesday to the Playwright Café. I had a card for a free lunch, after a meal with some colleagues went bad in late October. It seemed to take longer for some people to get lunch than it takes for the Garlic Clove to serve dinner.

Unlike last month, [30 Dec 03] no homeless people stopped me on the way to the Playwright Café this time. But the doors at 1109 Broadway still were locked, and papers still covered the business hours. At last it sunk in - the "Playwright" had too much red ink.

Only a couple of months ago, a man with the Playwright Café told WRBL the Monday Scrabble nights were going well and bringing people in. So what happened? Did the owners start paying a dollar a point to winning players, and go broke?

Then I recalled another TV interview at the Playwright Café late last year - in which a manager complained the city wasn't doing enough to promote downtown businesses. But that doesn't seem to stop other restaurants, like Ruth Ann's. Maybe this
café should have learned how to make hamburger steaks and giant-sized omelets.

(And did you notice WRBL's "top story" Wednesday night, about people coping with the cold weather on Broadway? Everywhere Desiree Taylor went, I didn't see many people. Maybe Columbus State should hold downtown classes 52 weeks a year.)

This marked the second time in five months that I had a free meal literally in my hands, only to find the restaurant shut down. To rephrase an old quote, you should strike while the oven is hot.

So what did I do instead for lunch? I chose to head for Peachtree Mall, and buy something at the food court after a couple of fast-walking laps for exercise. Of course, if I had gone to Columbus Park Crossing I might have walked faster -- outdoors in the cold.

As I drove to the mall, I happened upon a second dining surprise on Manchester Expressway. Wednesdays and Thursdays are now "low-carb fajita" nights at Ryan's buffet! C'mon, now - if the buffet is "all-you-can-eat," doesn't that defeat the purpose of this?

A third stunning surprise came as I walked around Peachtree Mall. The Wendy's restaurant in the food court has closed -- leaving this a mall without a burger stand! This seems almost un-American. Next thing you know, it'll be a mall without any kiosks in the middle of it.

(No, I will NOT count Ruby Tuesday as a hamburger restaurant. No burger place has a salad bar that big -- or a dessert menu that fancy.)

I chose not to eat at Peachtree Mall's Chick-fil-A - but I noticed the cows were gone from the restaurant's promotional signs. The company decided NOT to exploit the current concerns about mad cow disease. But now, the misspellings on the signs leave people thinking the staff is illiterate.

Since my lunch was built around price, I decided to buy a couple of items at Taco Bell. The second least-expensive option seemed to be beef jerky and chips at the Times News Stand.

All in all, it appears local Scrabble fans must head back into the closet - or at least to their computers. A number of copycat games are available online, such as Yahoo's "Literati." But those games have some bugs in them - such as the fact that Literati doesn't consider "blog" a valid word. [True!]

SONG OF THE DAY: I'm not sure if Columbus radio stations have been ordered to stop playing this classic rock song since the Kenneth Walker shooting - but it may be time to update Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" for civil rights protesters:

Kick out the sheriff.... if he will not name the deputy!

Those law enforcers.... our skin color is all they can see!

All around in my home town....

Drug busts keep going down.

They say they're trying to bring in the guilty,

But they have a bad cop deputy.

He's got no name, this bad deputy.... so we say:

Kick out the sheriff.... 'cause we say he acts in arrogance!

Lock up the deputy.... 'cause we say he did a capital offense!

Sheriff Ralph Johnson, we think he hates us.

His staff wants to run black men down....

Even if we don't sell weed.

They yell, "Open up your right hand now!

"I'll shoot it off, so open it now!" - that's why it's:

Kick out the sheriff - and lock up that unnamed deputy!

We'll take our money - and no last-place basketball we'll see!

© 2003-04 Richard Burkard, All Rights Reserved.