Don't ever eat at the IHOP at 950 E Madison Street in Seattle. Sketch-city.

Mary and I ate there earlier this week. She's a big pancake fan. Most of our friends are anti-IHOP, so we figured since we were eating on our own, it would be a good opportunity to do the IHOP-thing. We went to one I'd never been to -- I didn't even know it existed, even though it's only 10 blocks or so from my home, until I looked it up on the web.

Poor choice.

First, the people there were sketchy.

Second, there was no music. That doesn't sound like anything big, but it felt so strange. No background sound. It felt almost ominous.

Despite all that, the food seemed pretty good, and we had a good time playing Canasta before and after our meal. We brought the leftovers home, gave them to my dog, and went our separate ways.

You'd think that would be the end of the story, right?

Wrong.

The next day after a really long day at work, I came home to find an explosion of dog diarrhea all over the living room floor. It took 2 hours of intense cleaning to clean it all up. First there was the dog shit, then Mike called and gave me a tremendous amount of grief on the phone. Great way to end an already rotten evening. All in all it ended up being one of the unhappiest, most unpleasant nights I can remember ever having.

What does that have to do with IHOP?

I found out the next day that Mary had spent the entire night and day after the IHOP dinner throwing up with nasty stomach cramps. We think it was the sausage, since that's the only thing I didn't eat at all that both she and the dog ate. Stupid IHOP food poisoning.

Poor sister. Poor dog. Not cool.