My friend Kelly and I were having a big girls’ night on the town.  We had chosen a lovely restaurant and were seated in the bricked courtyard where many lights were hanging from the trees.  The ambience was perfect.

We were dressed for the occasion and were expecting to have a great time.  The meal was wonderful, the conversation delightful and the company animated.  We were having a fabulous evening!

At the end of this leisurely meal, we received our individual bills on small trays with little mints on top of them.  They were adorable and so we both immediately popped those little chocolate goodies in our mouths.

I immediately began to realize mine was not melting and was very hard – unchewable really.  I looked at Kelly and saw a look of horror I will never forget. “THESE ARE ROCKS!!!!!!!” she yelled at full voice.  And we both immediately spit our rocks into our hands.

We were stunned!  Of course, right at that moment our waitress passed by and, seeing us spitting the rocks into our hands, said in a very loud voice, “Don’t eat them!  They’re rocks!”(Well, duh!!!)  “I will bring you some real mints in a sec.”  (Note to self: never eat another mint not wrapped in plastic ever again!)

By now we were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe.  In fact, people in the tables around us were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.  Word had obviously gotten around about the two ladies at Table 11 who had tried to eat the rocks.

In fact, I’m sure a call was made to the Legal Dept of the company and the next day the stones would be printed with small signs that read “Please do not eat.”  All this done for the safety of the customer, of course.

We waited as long as we could for the hilarity to die down and the waitress to bring us real mints in real plastic wrappers.  Finally we felt we could leave with some dignity, although I was sure I felt the eyes of all the kitchen staff peering at our backs as we walked out, as the staffers said to each other, “Yeah, those are the two that tried to eat the rocks.  Watch for them if they ever come back.”

Oh, we are so never going back there again!  We are so never having a big girls’ night out for a long, long time!  And we are so definitely never popping anything in our mouths that has not been thoroughly cooked or hermetically sealed first!  Lesson learned.

Now I’m getting photos of decorated rocks sent by my “friends” with captions like, “Doesn’t this look yummy?”  This will never end!

And I seem to be developing a phobia of mints.  I don’t trust them anymore.  What to do? Kelly says just remember Rule #1 – DON’T EAT THE ROCKS!!!!!