By Mark Baratelli
Publisher
The Nutshell:
At Dining in the Dark, SWAT team members wearing night vision goggles seat, serve and manage a room of 100 people as everyone eats in utter, total, absolute darkness. It's a fundraiser for Lighthouse Central Florida and Second Harvest Food Bank and it's AMAZING.
At Dining in the Dark, SWAT team members wearing night vision goggles seat, serve and manage a room of 100 people as everyone eats in utter, total, absolute darkness. It's a fundraiser for Lighthouse Central Florida and Second Harvest Food Bank and it's AMAZING.
The Long Story:
I show up late and the lobby is swarming with people. I sign in and receive my table number (nine) and my two drink tickets. Full disclosure: the experience was paid for by the organization, not me or The Daily City.
I find my friend Brendan from Bungalower and Pam from Edible Orlando. We talk about the donation wall in front of us. It's this giant wall with plaques of differing sizes. We thought the bigger ones meant the person gave more.
We drink our wine and talk more. Then they call us all to order and we listen to a speech about blindness and hunger. This is after all a fundraiser.
Tables are called, one by one. Each table has 10 guests. When you're called, you line up in a single file line and place *both* hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you. This is awkward in the well-lit lobby. As you walk, everyone giggles to themselves. We are led past a row of people smiling at us.
We enter the room through one set of curtains, then another... and then we are in total darkness. At this point, I am grateful I am claimed onto the shoulders of the person in front of me. I cannot see anything... including the person in front of me.
This is what I would call a jump into the deep in. You are all in right from the word "go." Finding your chair is hard. Finding your water glass is hard. Finding the wine bottles placed in the middle of the table was hard.
The level of noise caused by people screaming to be heard by the people at the other side of the table forced you to scream. The whole room was talking extremely loud to be heard across very large round tables. To me, I'd want to get to know the people I am seated with. (They were all strangers) But with the tables forcing everyone to be so far apart from each other, folks gave up and chatted with the people immediately next to them.
The servers were SWAT Team members. I learned by talking to our server that Orlando does not have a full-time SWAT team. There are detectives and other Police Department employees who double as the city's SWAT Team.
The meal was served in courses. Each one came out, and we ate it with our hands. I loved it. So weird. SO WEIRD. I cannot see what I am eating, the people next to me, my own hands. NOTHING.
The wine bottles never left the center of the table, so I was loving life with that. Meaning, I drank like a fish. We were warned that people over-drank on accident at this event because it's pitch black, they;re nervous, and they aren't seeing the amount they're drinking. I was drinking because it was unlimited and HELLO where I come from, when it's unlimited, you unlimited yourself AND the wine.
The food was hard to pay attention to with the level of noise and the inability to really talk with people. So, I can't speak to the quality or taste.
What I loved is the darkness. I have anxiety. When I look at people in the eyes, it makes me nervous. This took that fake pressure I put on myself. No eyes were on me. I could listen and not look at the person and do that fake head-nodding you have to do when you're listening to strangers.
Also, while you're chatting up a storm and not worrying about how you look and how messy you are, ALL the SWAT team members can see you. I was reminded of that a few times and remembered to get self-conscious again.
I recommend this event to anyone. It's crazy. It makes you think. About what is really up to you I guess. For me, it was freeing.