The early birds catch dinner

A dining phenomenon unique to Florida is the early bird special.

In Missouri, you've got your lunch special and then dinner. Here, there's an in-between period when people who are in bed by 8 p.m. want to eat dinner. As a reward for being "early birds," they get a couple of bucks off.

Before moving here, I thought early bird specials were devices television and movie writers used to mock senior citizens. Au contraire. My friend Monica, always one to save a buck or two, took me to my first one on Sunday.

It was at a bay-side restaurant where the view is as important as the food. Both were pretty good, and the snowbirds -- what Floridians call winter residents who leave in May -- knew it well.

Nobody seemed put off by the fact that the early bird special coincided with low tide, making the stench almost unbearable.

As I've covered before, many of Florida's senior citizens aren't like your Missouri grandparents -- in other words, wise, patient teachers you look to with reverence. Maybe it's the warm weather.

They were arriving en masse, pouring out of their Lincolns and Cadillacs clown-car style. As far as I could tell, the fellow with the best vision and the most height above the steering wheel drove, the rest piled in.

One party almost trampled me to get in the door first. Those able to scale the stairs to the upper level lit off, yelling to their friends below.

"LOU! LOU!" one woman shouted. "THERE'S AN ELEVATOR AROUND THE CORNER!"

Monica and I were seated next to the window -- the youngest people in the place by at least 30 years. A long line began forming at the hostess' station. The trampling party settled in at the next table. It was 4 p.m., the start of early bird special time.

A waiter attempted to take our neighbors' orders.

"We're here for the sunset!" a man shouted. "Come back later."

Perhaps he didn't realize that with daylight-saving time the sunset was almost four hours away, and there were roughly 40 people who wanted that table.

The waiter, undoubtedly an early bird special worker from way back, took a smarter approach. "OK," he said.

"But the specials will be over at 5:30 p.m.," he said.

"Then come back at 5:29!" the man shouted.

The table nursed cocktails -- two-for-one drinks during the early bird special time! -- for an hour and were still sitting there after Monica and I split a piece of key lime pie for dessert. I don't know whether they got a sunset.

These experiences have me thinking about the kind of elderly person I'll be. I hope I make it that far. Florida's anti-smoking laws are helping me quite a bit in that regard -- too tough for anybody except the most militant smoker to bother with it -- but I'm still fat. And my family history of disease ... don't even get me started on my lousy genetics.

If I do make it, I hope I'm the kind of vibrant woman who piles into the Town Car with lots of friends and spills out at the early bird special. And dammit, if I make it that far, I'm seeing my sunset. Who cares if I'm four hours early. I'll nurse a cocktail.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.