“Hi, I’m Stacy, and I’ll be your server. Can I get you something to drink while you look at the menu?” she yelled over the high-decibel music. Over Stacy’s shoulder I could see seven large-screen TVs, each showing a different sports event — football, basketball, soccer, skiing, snowboarding, hockey and pingpong. Many more were scattered around the restaurant out of my line of sight.

It’s odd, but when we eat at home, I can’t tell you how often we turn on the television and the radio at the same time, or how often we turn up the music volume to 11. Oh, wait, I can tell you. Never.

It was hard to hear Screamin’ Stacy over the music, but I think she explained that the Drink o’ the Day was a chocolate milkshake made with double shots of brandy and tequila. Drink three, and the fourth one’s on the house. That sounded a little heavy for lunch, so we stuck with diet sodas.

While Stacy was fetching our drinks, we scanned the menus. I suddenly remembered reading that the filthiest things in most restaurants aren’t the bathrooms, but the menus. Unlike the bathrooms, the menus never get cleaned. Mine was a little sticky and smelled vaguely of popcorn shrimp. Maybe restaurants should put a bottle of Purell in the condiment tray along with the ketchup and hot sauce. Which brings up another question: How many people have handled that hot sauce bottle today, in the middle of flu season?