While visiting my mother and sister, recently, they insisted we go to a particular restaurant that tends to give me the hee-bee-jee-bees. So as not to offend or violate copy right rules, let’s just call it “Snacker Bucket.”

To get to a table at Snacker Bucket, one has to walk through a barrage of tchotchkes, knickknacks, packaged snacks, quilts, towels, and home-made lace covered items that scream you are NO LONGER IN THE MAN CAVE.

Seriously, it’s as if the Midwest-women’s knitting circle EXPLODED in there.

This restaurant and its appendage-shop have single handedly answered the question, and YES — Yes, you CAN have too many sock monkeys in one place.

Having maneuvered safely passed a row of bedazzled skirts and shirts and made it to a table, I felt I deserved a beer. You can NOT get a beer at Snacker Bucket. They will ply you with Coca Cola – I’m told some sites even offer lace covered, bedazzled Coke memorabilia – but you will NOT find an adult beverage of any kind at Snacker Bucket. Although I swear the old guy in the corner has snuck-in a flask.

But the menu looks good and hearty so we order and eat a very nice lunch … albeit under the watchful eye of several painted garden gnomes. Then I deftly jump up to pay the bill, “No, no I INSIST (because the quicker we pay the faster I can get out of here).” But oh no. Not to be. To leave quickly would be to short- yourself on the Snacker Bucket experience! So now we’re looking through rows of claustrophobia-inducing things that one does not need but certainly must have.

To be fair, Mom sprang for a beautiful shell necklace for my sister and a glittery blouse for me that is really quite pretty. And I admit it’s actually fun walking around a store that shouts “get your girly, on!” especially for someone who lives in a Man Cave where anything truly girly- except for me – is absent.

So, yes. I enjoyed my trip to the Snacker Bucket and would go again. But next time I’m bringing a flask. And staying away from the garden gnomes <shiver>.

This has been an actual conversation in the Man Cave. What’s the Man Cave? Read this.

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