Rush Goes To IHOP

RUSH: I meant to tell you this little story yesterday, slipped my mind. As some of you may remember, I was in Los Angeles over the weekend. I flew out there right after the broadcast on Friday, because I had some work to do very early Saturday morning. I participated in the production of a little pilot television show that is going to be presented to a network later this month for eventual sale. I’m not going to be a cast member. I just had a little bit part in it. We had to shoot this thing at seven in the morning because some of the other people had to catch airplane flights by ten or 11 o’clock. Ah, it was not too bad. Six, seven o’clock in the morning is like nine or ten o’clock, body clock time, East Coast time. Here’s the problem.

The problem was, I get out there, got to my fashionable hotel suite and extra bedroom at seven o’clock, and then had a little card game and had some dinner and so forth, and tried to go to bed at midnight. Now, my problem is on the road, I just haven’t dealt with it. It’s possible. But I have to take my cochlear implant off when I sleep. So when I take it off I’m a hundred percent deaf, and thus cannot hear an alarm clock, cannot hear a wake-up call, cannot hear anybody shouting at me. That comes in handy often, even when I’m not asleep. So I had to get up at like five, and when that happens, I really stay sort of half asleep, out of fear I’m going to miss it.

Normally sun will wake me up, any kind of light whatsoever. But this was before dawn, so I couldn’t rely on that, and leaving lights on in the room wouldn’t make sense, really wouldn’t be able to go to sleep. So I didn’t get a whole lot of deep sleep on Friday night. I went in, did the thing, required makeup, wardrobe, all of this. It was fun, but when it was over about ten o’clock, the producer and the director said, ‘Hey, you want to go grab some breakfast?’ and I was kind of looking forward to getting back to the hotel and just chilling for a awhile, watching a little football because there was a big party that night, but I said, ‘Okay. I’ll be a good member of the team.’ I said sure. They said, ‘Okay, well, just get in the car, go with me.’ We went an IHOP. I hadn’t been to an (interruption). Yes, I did. I went to an IHOP. No, there aren’t any pictures. This was one of the strangest experiences. There were 16 of us that went to an IHOP about 10:30 in the morning. I have gotten seated faster at Le Cirque. I had to wait a half hour, at IHOP, right there by the cash register — and it’s crowded. It’s crowded in there on Saturday morning. So, you know, I’m just a sitting duck in there, and everybody is just having the biggest time.

‘When’s the last time you’ve been to an IHOP, Limbaugh?’

I said, ‘It has to be 1976 or 1977, 30 years ago, but don’t sweat it. This is good for me. People say I’ve lost touch. This will get me back in touch.’ (interruption)

What did I order? Oh! Something I haven’t had in a long time, biscuits and gravy and two links of sausage and a scrambled egg. But this was funny (interruption). No, I don’t eat pancakes except for pregame meal before a sports event when I carbo load. There was plenty of carbs in this anyway. I mean, biscuits and gravy. I’ve never been big on pancakes anyway. I feel like a bowling ball, I feel like I’ve eaten a bowling ball when I eat pancakes. So anyway, we sit down and we’re all really scrunched up here. They put a bunch of tables together, IHOP tables are for two, and they’ve put them — sandwich them all — together. We’re really sardined in this little section of the restaurant and the waitress finally brings out the coffee cups and the coffee and pours the coffee.
The coffee they put on the table in these little thermoses, plastic thermos that you’d put in your RV, and I don’t put creamer in my coffee, just black with artificial sweetener. There was this bowl of artificial creamer stuff that the woman sitting next to me put two of them in a cup of coffee, and I said, “What is that?” because it was a different color than the normal coffee creamer. It was liquid stuff. I said, “What is that?”
“French vanilla,” she said.
“Oh, wow. I gotta try that. I’ve never had this before.”
So, I opened one of these little French vanilla coffee creamer things, put it in there, and it was delicious, and I started raving about it, and they just couldn’t believe this, that I didn’t know about French vanilla coffee creamer at the IHOP. So anyway, it took about 45 minutes once, you know, we sat down to order, have everything delivered, or served, I was starting to get cramped in there, and it was sort of difficult to get out. You know, the tables are loaded. They put all the syrup on every table. (interruption) Oh, you know that, too? So when I got up my host said, “Okay.” When I finished eating, said, “Okay, look. You can go now. You can go.” I had my car out there, and as I got in the car and I’m driving by, my friend comes out of the restaurant running after me, stops the car — gives me a whole bowl of these French vanilla coffee creamer things to take with me as a souvenir of my first trip to the IHOP in at least 30 years. So don’t anybody ever tell me ever again that I am out of touch or that I have lost touch.