My brother's lab experiment

When a lab rat discovers that he can receive a tasty food pellet by pressing a certain pattern of buttons, he'll continue pressing those same buttons even when the food pellets start being distributed at random. Or he'll do cute little paw motions depending on what he thinks might have worked in the past. This is superstition at its finest and it is the key to understanding why I keep on going back to My Bothers Place in Capitol Hill. Like our lab rats, I return each time with hope renewed despite objective criteria.

My conditioning process was complete and thorough. I had three good meals there back to back last year- a great burger, some fabulously tangy chicken wings piled high, and a sandwich of some delectable description. The beer and the service were good, the décor fun to hang out with.

Then, about two months ago, part 2 of the experiment cut in. Suddenly, the fries were soggy, the sandwiches sparse and everything took 45 minutes to arrive. A recent chicken salad contained: five iceberg lettuce leaves, some dry almond slivers, a few slices of dry, tasteless chicken, and two chunks of overripe apple. It was the kind of thing you might scavenge from your brother's refrigerator if you didn’t feel like making too much effort. And every time I went I was seated in the long-forgotten and antiseptic attic area where apparently, servers fear to tread.

Why do I go back? Well, its close, which is a big plus. But I know those food pellets will get good again if I can just press the right buttons. Or do the correct little foot motions.