"Let's just go somewhere for a burger," Babe suggest to his Yankee cousin.

"Why on earth would we go some place else when the food here is FREE?" She looks up from the menu and begins to scrutinize every little detail in the restaurant as if making sure there are no terrorists about to blow her plans for a FREE meal.

Her passive mathematician husband lifts his eyebrows. "We pre-paid $185.00 for this all-inclusive weekend, Sweetie. In addition, there's the cost of gasoline and the wear and tear on our vehicle, plus the fact that we're required to listen to two hours of condo sales. There's no such thing as a free lunch."

I'm in shock. I haven't heard the man string that many words together in fifteen years. All this time I thought he was vocally impaired.

She gives him a look that could reverse global warming. "We get an appetizer, salad, Kobe beef and Maine lobster. We polish it off with Mile High Chocolate Cake drizzled with real Hershey's chocolate syrup and we don't have to tip. It don't get no FREER than that, Sweetie. (The caustic endearment is squeezed out through her clinched teeth.)

Her husband gazes down at his feet as if the correct response will be found printed as cue cards on his squeaky clean Reeboks. "Whatever," he mumbles.

Hoping to divert a full-scale assault on the heretofore-silent micro-managing mathematician, I jump in to blab my two-cents worth. "Let's not make a big deal out of this. Hamburgers work for me. Who cares about an old lobster tail anyway?"

Babe's scowl tells me to shut up or he'll slap duct tape over my kisser. (He's convinced that duct tape is the magic key to enduring peace, as well as the lucky charm for enduring marriage.) He should know by now that in order for me to be able to stand his cousin for over three minutes requires chug-a-lugging a martini. To do otherwise is to flirt with disaster. It has National Enquirer headlines written all over it: "Wife Morphs Into Mt. Vesuvius!"

The cousin isn't a bad person ... it's just that she should have been a Marine sergeant. Send her to Iraq, and the entire region would be Lutheran converts within a month. Give her two months and women all over the Middle East would burn their burqas and join Rotary.

A tuxedoed waiter glides over to our table and watches the cousin stuff packets of sugar substitute into her pocketbook.

"Good Evening," he says never taking his eyes off the bulging purse. "My name is Hans. I will now go over the specials du jour with you." Babe's cousin snaps that white patent leather pocketbook shut and it sounds like a pistol shot. "Don't bother," she quips. "We know what we want." She looks around the table. "Don't we?" Not one of us has the nerve to challenge her.

The expressionless Hans snatches the pricey wine list off the table, and in classic Kissinger monotone says, "And that would be what, Madam?"

Babe starts fiddling with a full glass of water, twisting it around and around while my eyes are riveted on the cousin's husband staring again at his Reeboks.

"My hubby and I, that's him there," she points at Tofu Man seated next to her, "will have all of the most expensive items on the menu. It's FREE, isn't it?"

Hans blinks hard. I cringe and so wish for a tsunami to swallow me whole.

I sucker punch Babe in the ribs and the glass of water he's playing with sloshes all over the front of his pants. He makes an eeking sound I've never heard before, then snatches up my napkin and dabs his saturated khakis.

"Good grief, Babe," I exclaim, all wide-eyed and innocent. "I'm so sorry. We need to find you some dry britches before you start to draw a crowd. We wouldn't want folks to think you've got bladder issues, now would we?"

Five miles and fifteen minutes later, the aroma of onions, greasy hamburgers and French Fries has us hurrying at mach speed to a drive-in burger joint straight out of the 1950's.

"You've got ketchup on your chin," Babe leans over to wipe it off but I duck out of his reach. Sticking out my tongue as far as it'll go, I lick off all the ketchup while grinning like the Cheshire cat.

When dining on serious junk food and sipping local beer at a neighborhood greasy spoon, what's a few dribbles here or there?

It's all relative ...