Ruthie B's

Last Friday the library was having another magazine sale and my father had finished building the lofts for my sister's and her (now hypothetical) roommate's beds, so Pop came into town Thursday on a mission of magazine acquisition and interior decoration. Since I have access to a kitchen, as well as the nicer guest mattress, I won the honor of his company Thursday night and Friday morning.

Thursday night we picked up Matie and went to the Corn Maize in nearby Junction City. Although we'd arrived one day too early for the haunted Corn Maize, we were still lucky enough to witness Flashlight Night; the giant arc lights above the maze were turned off, so only light pollution and the waning moon gave us direction.

Well, that and our flashlights and the squeals of other groups of searchers. The Corn Maize is not designed as a challenging puzzle as much as a picture to be seen for the air - this year's picture was a coyote howling at the moon and stars - so it isn't too hard to navigate.

It was a lot nicer than the other time I'd gone, though, because it was nearly deserted on a non-haunted Thursday. The straw flung on the muddy ground was untrodden enough to shield us from the worst of the mud, and there were only a couple dozen other people in groups in the Maize with us. Every time they squealed or shouted obscenities into the crisp autumn air (or shined their flashlights directly in our eyes by way of greeting), I remembered how that happened at least every minute when the Maize was packed.

The haunted set pieces didn't look too promising either, so I probably won't go back again this year unless they have a darn good coupon in the paper. I got enough Maize that night, under the stars with my father and sister.

After walking around and around and finally escaping from the eight-foot-high corn coyote, we adjourned to the van and thence to my palatial cube at the Hobart Arms. Matie and I cut up a big mess o'stir fry while Pop read aloud to us from a copy of drew's book. He has a good voice for humor.

The next day, after oatmeal and magazine purchasing, Pop and I dealt with my car. I had managed to bend the breaker bar and round one of the lug bolts trying to remove a flat, then knock the car down so the jack was stuck sideways. (The flat was in the same location as last time, right under a fender that's the only part of the car to sport rust. I suspect a greater-than-usual concentration of entropy in the area.) Also, the crank came off so the driver's window couldn't be rolled up without pliers.

We bought a bolt and a crank and a compressor and rescued the jack and fixed the flat. Around lunchtime, we found ourselves in Springfield. Pop was hungry for something full of carbohydrates, but didn't want any pho, so we stopped before the river bridge at Ruthie B's.

From the outside, it looks like an antique shop in a small house, on the crazy-old-lady end of the thrift store spectrum. Only a small addition on the sign implied that there was tea to be found within. Tea and, we hoped, scones.

Before we were trapped within, we circled the establishment. The garden was packed, with enameled tables and chairs in between greenhouses, antiqued statuary and planters made of everything that wouldn't sit still, including a rusty old truck.

We were skeptical, but the tables implied food, so after a little debate we climbed up the planter-covered front steps and went in the door.

Inside there was a heroic amount of high-cost, sanitized junk, piled neatly and ascending almost to the ceiling, with aisles designed more for access than for browsing. The rooms were painted by theme, with sponge accents on pastel walls with quotes running around their tops, but the junk covered most of their surface.

There was no food in evidence, but as soon as we stepped in a cheerful woman in sweats relieved me of my bag and asked if we would like complimentary lattes. Pop declined on my behalf, as we aren't coffee drinkers, so she offered us chai instead. It seemed to behoove us to accept, and she urged us to look around the rest of the house, and not to forget drawers.

We wandered around the store, eventually running across some more empty tables nestled amidst the junk. There were some people eating at one of them, and a room that appeared to house a private party, but no obvious way to go from shopper to diner. We saw at least a dozen other beverage-holding shoppers, all of whom looked like doctors' wives thrilled with their excursion into the seamy world of second-hand décor. Needless to say, we felt a bit out of place.

A hushed conference near the stairs settled our course of action. We would go bother one of the people who appeared to work there (the ones without lattes) and either make fools of ourselves or be served tea and scones. Possibly both. But where previously the house was crawling with women advising us to look everywhere, even in the drawers, there was now nobody official to be found. Finally, Pop turned a corner and found a new woman sitting on a couch and taking off her shoes.

"It's okay," she offered, "I've known her for a long time." Seizing the opportunity, Pop untied the Gordian Restaurant Chain of Command by asking, "Long enough to get us menus?"

We got menus and found a booth to sit in. Pop was next to an old metal dustpan full of dried fruit and potpourri; I was in front of a quilt with a double swastika motif. The menu was the size of a largish bookmark and had been typed by someone with a fondness for apostrophes. It also mentioned "champange [sic] cocktails." We wondered about that, as well as the "1930's [sic] Gurlfriends Tea Party featuring 'Big Red' and the 'Gurls.'" (I presume the latter involves large, hairy men in flapper dresses.) The basic food options were soup, salad, sandwich and tea desserts, all of which sounded good.

Our waitress, an older lady, arrived and started telling us the specials. Pop begged her indulgence (not for the first time), since it was our first time at Ruthie B's and we were confused and frightened and disoriented. She had much information to impart that was not mentioned on the menus, but after much deliberation we managed to order a half sandwich and a scone each.

The waitress returned very quickly with a tray full of mysterious implements that did not turn out to be our lunch. She liberally sprinkled the table in front of us with dried lavender, then opened up a tiny plastic champagne bottle to reveal a bubble wand. "These are happy bubbles; everybody gets some!" She blew a healthy blast of bubbles over my father's bewildered head and then my own.

Then she set down two small chilled glasses, full of ice cubes, and a tiny brass strainer and matching strainer rest. She also had a carafe of cold water with rose petals and some herb floating in it, and poured the water through the sieve and into our glasses. Pop asked what the herb was, and she claimed it was mint, but even I could tell that the leaves were much too large to be mint. It was probably lemonbalm, but we never did find out for certain.

The waitress left us again, more confused but no less hungry. I amused myself by finding that the strainer, despite its holes, would hold quite a bit of water unless you were actively pouring more in. It was probably intended for tea, although we did not rule out the possibility that the laws of physics were different within Ruthie B's.

A different waitress delivered our sandwiches and a small cup of sliced melon and strawberries each. The sandwiches were pretty good, if a little different. Pop's turkey had cream cheese and marmalade. Mine, egg salad, was supposed to have sunflower seeds in it, but I was a little relieved not to detect them. Pop selflessly ate my fruit for me.

Then came the scones. The menu had mentioned that they came with marionberry jam and Devonshire clotted cream, but it would have been more accurate to say the Devon cream came with a scone. The scones came in bowls, completely covered with cream crowned with jam. We never did figure out what Devon cream was, but it was pretty good, sort of like a lighter version of Bavarian cream. The scones were almond-cherry, and not terribly remarkable, just tasty.

After all the buildup at the beginning, we were able to escape without any more strange rituals, save the check having a smiley-faced "Thank You!" written on the back. We walked blinking into the crisp October air, lunch finally accomplished.

We can't wait to inflict Ruthie B's on the rest of the family, although the experience won't be quite the same now that we know what to expect. The struggle of solving the service puzzle made the scones all that much sweeter.

Which makes it a double shame that the kettle corn stand at the Maize was closed by the time we wandered out.