Stop #1: Steak 'n' Shake at Nora (#36)

The first stop of the Steak 'n' Shake quest was initially scheduled to happen in the wee hours of February 1. Considering this, my most brilliant idea ever, didn't hit me until midway through January, it seemed fated that we would run this quest not for the calendar year of 2011, but rather from February of 2011 to February of 2012.

Plus, the world ending in 2012 gives us a good excuse if we end up not succeeding WE WILL SUCCEED.

Unfortunately, our quest could not begin that night, because the our state was hit with a ridiculous ice storm.

I believe the following illustration sums up what we were dealing with on those days:


The Steak 'n' Shake destined to be the first stop in this quest is just north of center in "Mostly Screwed" territory. I think. I'm actually not terribly good with geography; if it weren't for the weather we actually faced last week, I might place us at somewhere in "You get to live," except I know I'm not going to marry my first cousin.

Then again, given the weather we actually faced last week, I'd actually be more likely to confuse our area with somewhere in "Screwed."

At any rate, we had ice. A lot of it.

For example, that was my car.


And that was the thickness of the ice I was trying to get off my car. And I had cleared it off after the first night of storm, before the second one. So you can imagine the roads.

Brett and I ended up making the first trip three nights later, after I got off work.

When we got to SnS, I immediately insisted we begin planning. After all, this blog is going to get boring if all it is is us posting "Yeah. We went to such-and-such SnS. Fun times. Laterz." It will also get irritating if we're that vague and we type words like "Laterz."

So I wanted a better plan. Something to make the trips more entertaining, in part for post-worthiness, in part because I like to have a focus point myself.

Before we got too deep into planning, though, we began to reminisce a bit. It's hard not to, when you're at the Nora SnS. Though I've gone to Steak 'n' Shake a lot over the last seven-to-eight years, it wasn't until Brett and I made it a regular, weekly trip a few years ago that a bond was really foraged. Prior to these regular trips, I liked Steak 'n' Shake because it was good food and open all the time -- convenient. After we'd been doing the regular weekly trips to the Nora Steak 'n' Shake, specifically, it became not just a convenient restaurant to hit up, but a haven of sorts.


This is the big reason we had to start at the Nora Steak 'n' Shake -- it's like home. Home, sweet home. Despite the writing in the photos looking like it says "Home swat home."

And for that same reason, we were easily sidetracked and distracted when we got there. We talked about how cool it would be if Ella, the second regular server we had, still worked nights. We talked about how awesome Waiter Tim, our first regular server, was. We joked about how weird Eric, our third regular server, had been. We talked about how important it is to be regular, or at least how important those commercials featuring elderly people make it seem. (Except that we really didn't.)

And then we came to our last regular server, Daniel, the guy who had most recently been regularly scheduled the graveyard shift when we were still going in during the graveyard shift on a somewhat regular schedule. We talked about how we missed him and wished he were still there -- he made the trips more fun, after all.

And just when I was ready to redirect the conversation to our quest and missions, who should walk in but Daniel himself.

Not to work. Daniel hasn't worked at Steak 'n' Shake for a little bit. But he was coming in to visit with former coworkers, I assume, and we grabbed his attention instead.

He came and sat down. And it was apparent quite quickly that he had been drinking, and no small amount, before he showed up.

(No worries, folks, a friend had come with him to do the driving.)

And so we became sidetracked again, as Daniel Salo (the name he now told us to call him) sat and chatted with us. But all was well, as spirits were high. At least, on our end, spirits were high. On his end, more than that may have been high, though it was hard to tell, for me, because I've lived far too sheltered a life.

We first told Salo about the quest. He seemed to approve of the idea, but quickly said we should not go to the SnS on Post. His logic was that he didn't work there and so it sucked; but by that logic, all Steak 'n' Shakes suck, and that would destroy the quest. So we're going to dismiss his concerns on that.

After that, we caught up a bit on what's going on in life. Well, a little bit, we did. Though at some point it came up that I was now planning a wedding, and Salo decided to hit on Brett so that he could go as his date. Sadly, Brett apparently has a girlfriend, so even if Salo does look nice in a dress, Brett's probably already taken.

However, it made for some fun and entertaining conversation, for a bit.

We headed out around 4:30 a.m., after some awkward moments between our former waiter, and his former coworker.

You know the rule, about keeping hugs to three seconds or less to avoid awkwardness? Salo didn't just break that rule, he trampled all over it, shared some of his booze with it to loosen it up a bit, then threw it out into the ocean, and everyone knows rules can't swim, so it clearly drowned.

He then tried to be awkward in a photo with us.


Despite the awkwardness, it was an overall good night, save for the fact that we accomplished little in the way of planning what else our quest would entail, beyond setting a routine weekday for visiting each of the Steak 'n' Shakes in Indiana. I guess the rest will have to wait until tomorrow night.