My sister was dying to see celebrities. by our third day in, we hadn’t had much luck, so we decided to pull out the big guns and head to The Ivy, luncheon cafe to the stars. I was nursing a bad hangover or some bad cream cheese and my stomach was in knots, but I figured that my inability to digest would cut down on our food bill. And of course, there’s always more drinking to be done.

Megan was nervous walking past the hallowed picket fence of The Ivy, but I strode bravely onward and put us on the list for two. After a brief wait, we were led into a bright yellow room the size of my closet and wedged into a very uncomfortable table next to two Italian tourists. The whole place smelled like money, and between Megan’s cowboy hat and my pallid complexion we stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs. i decided a bloody mary was in order, if for no other reason than to show our waiter that we weren’t any water-drinking, appetizer-sharing pair of hicks from back east.

the bloody mary was twelve dollars.

it was also roughly 1/3 the cost of almost anything else on the menu.

In light of the unexpected overpricedness of the offerings, Megan got an artichoke salad (a bargain at only $14) and i made the executive decision to stick with my liquid diet. When we had finished ordering, our waiter’s face fell.

“um, we have a $20 minimum on food.”

I grudgingly ordered an eight-dollar bowl of vegetable soup.

“are you going to get dessert or anything? Because the minimum is actually $20 per person.”

I nearly spit out two dollars worth of my sublimely expensive tomato cocktail. Megan nearly burst into tears. The waiter, seeing our reactions, nearly kicked us out.

“I mean, you don’t have to get dessert, but we’ll charge you the minimum anyway.”

Once he was out of earshot, we discussed our next move. I had already started my drink, so we couldn’t very well leave, and, having been outed as cheapskates, we weren’t in any position to make a scene. We decided to order the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM for food cost and then get the hell out of there. The paint job was making my eyes bleed.

Our lunches arrived, and, like most overpriced food, they were beautifully presented and regrettably diminutive. Megan’s “artichoke salad” was a medium sized ‘choke with three pieces of lettuce and a cherry tomato stuffed into the middle, while my “bowl” of soup looked suspiciously cup-sized. But no matter, we set out to make the most of things. Megan hacked away at the heart of that artichoke like she was mining for diamonds in Africa, and I actually drank my lunch straight from the bowl just to liven up the scene. By the time we finished, the management was eager to free up the table.

Getting our thirteen-dollar cheesecake to go was no problem.

In total, our bill came to $61 plus tip. And although there were no celebrities to be spied upon, there was a really ugly fat chick with a mullet sitting at a table near us. Although her unfortunate haircut momentarily bolstered our moods, we were saddened to see that even SHE was eating a normal-sized meal.

Hence, we come to the following conclusion:

but we had a damn good time blowing it.