CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

19 Year Anniversary

Go us! My husband and I have been married 19 years. That’s so amazing.

To celebrate, we went to Mastro’s Ocean Club, where we’ve gone for the past several years. This is all my idea. My husband thinks it’s too pricey for what you get in a shopping center parking lot restaurant, but I love the food; I’m a plain eater. And they always give you free butter cake, if it’s your anniversary.

Not this year, however.

This year, no one asked if we were celebrating anything, although we brought a fancy bottle of French wine from the 80s as well as a gift.

So no free cake.

But this was all fine. We had oysters and sparkling pink wine. We had bread and ordered steaks and sides. Lovely, swoon, sigh.

Suddenly, though, my husband pointed out a guy in the next table who got up and walked away.

“He’s going to take a pooh,” my husband said.

What?!?

Now, it seemed to me that this was a different crowd than you might expect at a place where dinner for two costs $300 plus. When we arrived, a smoking couple in front (no judgment!) was so drunk they were swearing, literally, their love for Trader Joe’s. “I love f-ing Trader Joe’s,” the girl in the mini skirt was saying as she herky-jerked her way to the bar as the hostesses smiled awkwardly at us.

Back to the table, right near ours, during our meal. The guy in the cowboy hat went to pooh! Then he came back, smiling.

“Did you do your No. 2,” another guy at the table asked.

“Don’t worry,” cowboy said. “I plugged up the pipes.”

“I think I’m done eating,” my anniversary partner said.

And I agreed. Who wants butter cake, free or not, after hearing your fellow diners talking about pooping the seafood he’d just eaten? And yes — he explained it was the seafood.

Honestly. What is with people?

We are in the market for a new anniversary place.

Next year, Number 20, will not be overtaken by No. 2.