A few years ago, while we were still liv­ing togeth­er, Pita and I passed by a restau­rant called Social that was along the mar­ket. We looked in at the ele­gant, min­i­mal atmos­phere, the nice­ly dressed peo­ple, and the intri­cate dish­es that were being served to them. Looking at the menu post­ed out­side, and not­ing the lack of dec­i­mals in the pric­ing (every­thing was in flat dol­lars), it was mutu­al­ly agreed that going there to dine with­out a rea­son to cel­e­brate was out of our bud­get. Just walk­ing inside was some­thing that we would have to earn, and we made an agree­ment. For the term, if I could man­age all As (any­thing from an A- to an A+, or a GPA of over 8.0) and if he could win his next com­pe­ti­tion (for both stan­dard and Latin ball­room danc­ing) than we would walk in one day and order any­thing we want­ed.

The term came and passed, and in the end I only man­aged a bunch of measly grades, while he got bronze at the com­pe­ti­tion. We nev­er spoke of it again.

Until this week. After trav­el­ing abroad for more than a year and work­ing in his native coun­try, Pita came back to Canada to set­tle down. He decid­ed to live the rest of his life in Montreal, but he was able to vis­it for the week­end. We agreed on lunch at Social, not need­ing any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion between each oth­er. After all, we grad­u­at­ed, found jobs, start­ed to set­tle down. We had­n’t seen each oth­er in over a year.

He had the duck, I had the lamb. Both were unbe­liev­ably suc­cu­lent, ten­der, and came with fresh sal­ads in a light dress­ing, along with super-thin fries. Even though we weren’t dressed as well as what some would call the “reg­u­lar” patrons, we were served well and with respect, some­thing can’t be said about all the restau­rants I’ve been to. To be hon­est, I’ve nev­er been giv­en a choice of water (reg­u­lar, min­er­al, soda, or sparkling, the man told us). I paid this time, and Pita agreed to treat me when I vis­it him in Montreal.