a story about red velvet pancake puppies
A couple of weeks ago I was home for Thanksgiving for a few days, and one night I went out to the Burlington bars with my home-friends. We ended up at a club that embodies the word ‘sketchy’ to the fullest degree. The walls there were covered with mirrors. The only way to resolve anything was to dance: not on the main dance floor whose DJ was playing various Rihanna remixes and whose population was focused on rubbing certain body parts together, but on the side dance floor, which was the unofficial dubstep dance floor. This was the night I learned that dancing correctly to dubstep will always result in some injury to my person. I had the upper spinal integrity of an eighty-year-old woman the next day.
After a slack-faced man in a red polo shirt tried to dance one of my friends (yes, that’s ‘dance’ as a transitive verb), we decided to leave. And in our group, whenever the night feels unfinished we go to Denny’s. I know. I know what you’re thinking. It’s horrible. It really is. I am convinced that my friends and I are all semi-sophisticated people in professional and collegiate environs, but when we are together and at home, we go to Denny’s. Denny’s calls to us with its siren-song. It can be forgiven for its minor transgressions, like the time on New Year’s Eve when I drunkenly ordered a sausage-gravy-and-biscuit combo that, had a death row inmate received it for his or her final meal, would have been tossed in the garbage in favor of a swifter date with the electric chair. It never gets old, our Denny’s dates.
So we went to Denny’s and I saw on their little paper holiday specials menu that they were featuring something called the “Red Velvet Pancake Puppies™ Sundae.” Pancake Puppies™ are little greasy balls of fried dough, and they are a Denny’s signature item. I’ve had the plain ones before and they made my stomach feel as if someone was sitting upon it for the rest of the night. But I was tempted. They looked so red and lurid and cheery on the menu. My taste in food is often perverse.
The waitress came over. ”Have you tried these puppies?” I asked her.
“Yeah. They’re dope,” she replied.
So I ordered them. And you know what? She was absolutely right. They were dope. I relished those Pancake Puppies™. They went very well with the generic vanilla ice cream. After thrashing about on the dance floor and drinking several vodka cranberries, I had no reason to think these puppies were anything less than astounding. That dessert was the reason we always go to Denny’s to finish the night — the giggles and occasional sublime Pancake Puppies™ amend the nausea that come after such a meal. This is not a Red Velvet Pancake Puppies™ recommendation, not exactly, but if you’ve downed some hard liquor and end up at the big D, definitely order them instead of the sausage gravy.
