Breadsticks

The aliens were not going to leave the Olive Garden.

Originally, they had no plans to try out any of the fast casual restaurants the world had to offer. They were on a very strict timeline--

1. Arrive on Earth.
2. Bring together mankind under an umbrella of peace and kindness.
3. Meet Paul Simon.
4. Go home.

Peace and kindness didn’t take very long, but Paul Simon was a hard man to pin down.

When the aliens finally got him on the phone, he cautiously agreed to meet with them provided they did not force him to sing “Call Me Al.” Of course, this was every alien’s favorite song, and they were desperate to hear him sing it live, but they played it cool, and said “Oh yeah, no, it’s fine, you don’t have to sing ‘Call Me Al.’ You can sing something else instead. ‘Sound of Silence’ is great. You can sing that.’”

The aliens did not want to hear “Sound of Silence.” It creeped them out, and made them think about the vastness of space. Still, hanging out with Paul Simon was part of the mission whether or not he agreed to sing the song of their choice.

After some back-and-forth about where they should meet, Paul suggested a place near his house that he liked going to. A little Italian place named Olive’s Garden.

The aliens said “Uh huh, uh huh, we got it,” but they were only half-paying attention, because one of them had just discovered what a walnut was, and they were fascinated by it. When they realized they couldn’t remember the exact name of the restaurant where they were supposed to meet Paul Simon, they began to panic. They didn’t want to have to call back one of the Universe’s greatest songwriters and tell him that they weren’t paying attention to them, even though, had he been singing “You Can Call Me Al,” they definitely would have been paying attention.

That was when the alien with the biggest ears said--

“Wait! I think he mentioned something about a garden? And Italy? An Italian garden?”

The aliens knew from their calculations that Google would ultimately create an AI system that would overrun humanity and go to war with every other lifeform in the galaxy, but that was a year or two off, so they weren’t worried about it right then and there. They used it to look up Italian gardens in the area and “Olive Garden” popped up, but, truthfully, even if they had remembered that it was “Olive’s Garden” chances are “Olive Garden” still would have popped up, because why would you name a restaurant “Olive’s Garden” and serve Italian food unless you wanted people to confuse you with the Olive Garden?

(Sidenote: After this story was completed, we did a little digging, and it turns out that the owner of “Olive’s Garden” does want people to confuse their establishment with the Olive Garden, because it means people go to their restaurant expecting the Olive Garden, and when they get there, they think “Well, we’re already here” and that’s how Olive’s Garden stays in business.)

When the aliens got to the Olive Garden, they didn’t see Paul Simon, but they decided to sit anyway since most of their party had already arrived. The hostess was a polite nineteen-year-old who was attending the local community college on her way to being a marine biologist. She thought one of the aliens might be a manatee, but she couldn’t be sure, because she hadn’t finished her studies yet.

Once the aliens were seated, the waiter--a forty-three year-old named Andy, who was a kindergarten teacher that needed to make extra money on the side--came by and offered to take their drink orders. On their home planet, the aliens drank a mixture that was half mercury and half bromine. On Earth, they’d order Diet Coke. No matter how strange it was to see an alien enjoying a beverage, if the beverage was Diet Coke, people seemed to be less bothered by the visual. One alien without a mouth would simply order the Diet Coke and then hold it in alternating hands without ever drinking it. Even this would seem to placate humans who were still getting used to the aliens.

“We’ll have Diet Cokes,” Joseph, the lead alien, said to Andy, the waiter.

(Sidenote:  His name was not really Joseph, but we don’t have the proper alphabet available to us to spell the alien’s real name, so we’re going with Joseph, because Joseph is a nice name. Our uncle was named Joseph, and he would buy us shaved ice in the summer.)

After the Diet Cokes were brought over and distributed amongst the extraterrestrials, Joseph asked what they would like to eat. By this time, the aliens thought perhaps Paul Simon had gotten tied up writing a new song, and maybe that new song would be just as good as “You Can Call Me Al” (although it didn’t seem likely) and maybe they should just order without him since they were already here and Andy seemed so nice and everybody seemed so happy and the hostess had said something about being family (even though it was very unlikely that she’d be related to them) and so they asked what the best dish on the menu was since they had watched a human movie where a character had done that.

“Um,” said Andy, “People usually start with the salad and breadsticks and then--”

“How many breadsticks come with a breadstick order,” asked Joseph, who wanted to make sure there would be enough breadsticks for everyone, even though one of them didn’t have a mouth and another one was just a ball of gas that floated around in front of the aliens.

(Sidenote: Her name is also unspellable, but we’ll call her Betty.)

“You can have as many as you want,” said Andy, “They’re unlimited.”

The aliens knew all about time and space being unlimited, but they didn’t realize the rules of infinity could also apply to food.

“What sort of mythical place is this,” asked Joseph, as Betty floated behind him making everything smell faintly of sulfur.

Andy began bringing by breadsticks, and as soon as the aliens tried them, they became ravenous. While human food had never really appealed to them, this food did not seem all that human. It was both unique and bland. Over-seasoned and lightly touched by spices. Eating it felt almost like attempting to solve one of the Universe’s greatest puzzles. Compared to breadsticks, world peace was like a game of Candyland.

(Sidenote:  Aliens don’t play Candyland and they don’t know what candy is, but we wanted to make sure you understood just how in awe of breadsticks they were.)

Their salads went mostly untouched, although Betty seemed to enjoy the giant olives. She’d plop one into the space where her mouth would be and the olives would fall down to the floor, but she’d be delighted all the same.

When Andy asked if they’d like to try any entrees, they laughed at his folly.

Entrees?

You mean the things that aren’t unlimited?

Why bother with any of that?

Why, if someone offers you an endless supply of milk, you’d be foolish to tell him to stop and go get you orange juice, wouldn’t you?

The aliens were eating the breadsticks at a startling rate. Soon, the kitchen was nearly out, and everyone else in the restaurant was wondering why they were getting fewer and fewer breadsticks with each order. The management had decided that it was important to satisfy the aliens since they were from another galaxy and also because they had made everybody stop fighting and get along and return their library books and share their Wifi passwords and littering was a thing of the past and nobody took videos during concerts anymore.

Unfortunately, the kitchen did run out of the breadsticks and the aliens were still eating. Waiters were dispatched to other Olive Gardens to get breadsticks from them. When the managers at those other Olive Gardens heard there were aliens enjoying their breadsticks, they saw it as their duty to continue to feed the visitors until they were no longer hungry.

(Sidenote: An alien’s stomach is one big loop. The food goes around and around like it’s on a hamster's wheel until it disintegrates, but the alien is never really “full.”)

Soon, all the Olive Gardens in the state had closed their doors to the public. No one was allowed in, as they had become merely breadstick factories. The breadsticks were made and then delivered to the Olive Garden where the aliens sat, ate, and ordered more.

When the other restaurants began running low, there was some discussion of apologizing profusely to the aliens, and accepting defeat. That suggestion was quickly shot down by the corporate marketing team.

“You cannot say we’re out of breadsticks,” said Timothy Frank, the Head of Olive Garden Marketing, “Unlimited breadsticks are the cornerstone of our brand. If the aliens want more, you have to give them more. You can’t say we’re out. It could collapse the brand.”

Similar to when the President invokes the Defense Production Act, the Olive Garden has the option to invoke the Eternal Breadstick Act. It’s a rule without the Olive Garden’s Constitution that when there is a breadstick shortage, several dormant factories can be activated, staffed, and operated 24/7 until the shortage is no longer an issue. This has only happened once in the history of Olive Gardens, and it was on Father’s Day of 2009.

The aliens had no idea they were causing such a fuss, and had they known, they would have gladly stopped eating breadsticks and ordered a chicken piccata instead. It was only because nobody made them aware of the disturbance that they kept on eating even as every other customer in the restaurant vacated the premises.

News reports began circulating about the Great Breadstick Battle even though it wasn’t quite a battle, and even though it was irresponsible to frame it as such since a battle with the aliens would have ended quickly, and humanity would not have been on the winning side. Then again, that’s the media for you. They threw up graphics on their newscasts of breadsticks being shot at by laser guns held by little green men, and people began to wonder if Olive Garden would go bankrupt due to the aliens who had simply come to end all war and meet Paul Simon.

Had it not been for a small miracle, the aliens might have indeed taken Olive Garden to its very limit. Luckily, Betty had, at that point, dropped so many breadsticks on the ground that Joseph saw what a mess was being made, and, not wanting Betty to feel badly about her inability to hold matter inside herself, clapped his tentacles together and announced that dinner was over, and they all needed to head back to the ship.

Before he paid the bill (and tipped handsomely), he offered to help clean up the mess Betty had made, but Andy was so thrilled the aliens were leaving, he put on a show of not caring one bit about the pile of food on the floor, even though it was going to take an hour or two to clean it, and it had already been seventy-three hours since the aliens first entered the Olive Garden.

Once they had exited the building, the staff all walked outside to see a glowing orb ascend above the shopping plaza they were located in, and a series of lights blinked on and off across the center of the orb. This was a farewell from the aliens, and the Olive Garden staff were touched that they were being acknowledged in this way. It made them understand that the true meaning of connection is--

“Excuse me?”

A small man with a guitar was standing in front of the staff who hadn’t noticed him, because they were all looking up at the sky.

“I was supposed to meet some friends at this place down the road, but I think they got the name wrong,” the man said, “Do you have a table for one? I’m starving and could really go for some breadsticks.”

By then, the aliens were off to another strange world, spinning in infinity.