Family Grapevine

I think that pretty much every family has a grapevine.  For example, your entire family seems to be aware of something that happened to you even though you are pretty sure you only told one person.  Maybe even in confidence.  These grapevines can be used for both good and evil.  At times embarrassing information you would rather keep private seems to be fodder for open discussion among 20+ people related to you by birth or marriage.  At other times you are spared the necessity of contacting 20+ people individually to share happy or sad news.

It is thanks to this rather circuitous communication method that I was spared a potentially painful encounter this last Monday.  It went a little something like this:  My cousin's wife Stephanie has Celiac's Disease, too.  She went to IHOP and ordered a seemingly innocuous omelette (it's just eggs, cheese and meat, right?).  She became ill and then discovered that there is flour added to the eggs in IHOP's omelettes.  This story was related to my uncle who told my father who mentioned it to my brother.  Thus it was mid-morning this past Monday as I was salivating over my Colorado (I love you, CO!) omelette which I had ordered because it didn't have any potentially dangerous cheese sauces (and because I love CO!) and after informing the waitress that I cannot, CANNOT, CANNOT eat wheat that my brother said to me, "You know that has wheat in it, right?"

WHAT?

Yeah, apparently IHOP adds flour to the eggs in their omelettes to make them more fluffy.  Or in my case, deadly.

Okay, not really deadly.  Just excruciatingly painful.

They also apparently don't also have the best trained staff as the lady either didn't know or didn't remember and for sure didn't check after I told her my issue.

Note to self:  Only the bacon is 100% safe at a place that makes most of its money from making pancakes.

Note to family grapevine:  You all totally saved the day!  Thanks to all, especially Doug!