I’m a member of a professional organization. Our monthly meetings take place at an Italian restaurant. I’ve recently discovered I’m allergic to white flour. I ate some of the pasta during last month’s meeting and paid dearly with a week’s worth of congestion, sneezing and watery eyes. Today I decided to handle things differently. I planned to eat the salad and I brought a protein bar to round out my meal.
I was not excited about this. In fact, I spent the entire morning obsessing about how crappy my lunch was going to be while everyone else enjoyed delicious pasta.
The lunch for this meeting is served family style. In came the salads followed closely by bowls of steaming Italian fare. Sigh… But then the server brought to my table a bowl of pasta that was gluten-free. A colleague has Celiac disease and placed a special order. The bowl was filled with enough noodles and sauce to feed 6 or 8 people. My colleague shared with me. I was able to eat pasta just like everyone else. Hours later and I’m breathing freely and I haven’t sneezed once today.
Going forward my colleague and I are going to make sure we sit at the same table for these meetings because we seem to be the only folks in the group who have gluten/white flour issues.
It never occurred to me to ask whether or not the restaurant could accommodate a special order. Why is that? I’m glad my friend had the wisdom to ask for what he needed. Hopefully the next time I have a special need, I’ll do the same.
482gr8 