In September of 2010, Scarlette and I took a vacation to Moncton, New Brunswick (Canada). My father’s side of the family mostly lives there, and while we were going so that she could meet everyone, I also hadn’t been up that way to see everyone in over ten years.
We lined up some family visits early, and in turn those family visits turned into recommendations of places to visit. One of those places to visit was Prince Edward Island. We made plans the next day to make the trek up to the island and see the sites.
After crossing over the Confederation Bridge and into PEI, we were greeted by small shops. We were both getting a bit hungry, but decided to see what else we could find on the rest of the island.
So we headed north.
And there was nothing.
Eventually, we wound up at Green Gables, probably best known for Anne of Green Gables. We walked around the museum there and got a small scoop of ice cream that we shared. That wasn’t enough, but would hold us over for an hour or two.
That night was the night before Hurricane Earl was to hit the area, and everyone all day had been saying that they were closing the bridge at 8pm that night; if you were on the island after that, you were weathering the storm there. We didn’t want to do that since we already had a hotel in Moncton, so we “raced” home. (Raced is a bit of an exaggeration, although with hunger building and a time-limit established, it made the trip stressful.)
We got slightly lost on the way back — PEI is mainly just farmland everywhere. It’s hard to know if you’re even making progress towards getting anywhere with all of the rolling hills and intersections that look identical. After what felt like two days but was really only a couple of hours, we made it.
Side story: getting to the bridge and sitting in line, I asked Scarlette how much she thought the toll would be to cross back. It’s free coming to the island, but a toll road on the way out. She guessed $2, I guessed $5. She thought I was way too high until we found out it was $42.50. Yikes. This was turning out to be an expensive, rushed day trip.
We crossed the bridge once more and headed back to Moncton to find food. I remembered ten years ago we went to some Chinese buffet place, and thought maybe that would be a good idea since we had no idea how hungry we really were. On the strip where such food exists in Moncton, there were a couple of different Chinese buffet spots. The area that I remembered had two places across the street from one another, so I pulled into the one that look slightly nicer. At that point, we were ready to eat anything.
The waitstaff kindly sat us next to the window. They said we could hit up the buffet whenever, and we wasted no time. I took a little bit of everything, and so did Scarlette. It wasn’t too long into trying things that we realized the food wasn’t good. In fact, it was flat-out bad. It must have been sitting on those little heaters all day. We had made a huge mistake.
After one bite of each thing, we gave up and tried something else. Our waitress must have thought we were complete snobs, not taking a second bite of anything. At the end, I even went up to take some soft-serve ice cream. How can anyone mess up soft-serve ice cream? The answer is: by not having the temperature cold enough.
As it turned out, trying one bite of all that horrible food filled us enough that we were no longer hungry. It was hard not to laugh at the horrible meal and what an odd day it had been. As we sat their waiting for the check, I stared blankly out the window. I saw my car. Beyond my car was the busy main road. Beyond the road was the other Chinese buffet place.
And in that restaurant’s window there was a sign.
All other signs along the road are facing the direction that cars are traveling so that they can grab the attention of people driving, but not this sign. This sign was facing the restaurant we were sitting in. I read it and actually laughed out loud, as on the sign were eight words — eight perfect words — in perfect context that we could tell were meant just for us (and anyone that had done exactly what we had done).
The sign read, “next time, come see what quality tastes like.”
It wasn’t a handwritten sign, but it wasn’t professionally produced either. We’d been had. We knew it sitting in the restaurant, the restaurant across the street knew it, and it was re-confirmed later that evening over a gathering with my family. They asked where we ate that night, and our response each time was met with “their food is awful. You should have went to the place across the street from that.”
Although we stayed in Canada for four more days, we didn’t end up back on that strip for food; we ate with family until we left.
That day of travel had mainly been a bust, but not a total one. Although we drove hundreds of miles to see — well — hundreds of miles of farmland and get a scoop of ice cream, I can still to this day remember everything about that sign in the window across the street.
We already decided that next time we go visit family up that way again, we’re going to try the place across the street. The reviews from family were all positive, but for me it’s all about that sign. I love perfect timing: it’s the best part of great comedy, it’s the essence of wit, and — in this case — it’s cheap but effective marketing that’s got me curious for more.
