So the story starts off innocently enough, then twists and turns like the roller coaster I've come to call my life. So fasten your seat belts, hide all pets, take small bites, use a number two pencil and have your tickets ready: the tour is leaving now!

This buddy of mine gives me a gift certificate to some crab joint for the holidays. I'm thinking it's a pretty good gift since all I've ever given him was a hard time. I didn't flash on the fact that somebody I didn't really get along with had just given me crabs as a gift!

It started with the hostess (and I use the term loosely) whose face was pulled into a permanent exasperated sneer. Mistress Crabella, as we'll call her, decided to show me to a table (even though it was obviously beneath her) by saying in a very stern, almost matronly voice, "Just follow me," and briskly walking away. "Oh, thank you Mistress, a table isn't necessary, I'll just lick my dinner off your boots," I thought to myself.

As the Evil One led me through the dining/ torture chamber, I noticed a shark head amidst the various fishing paraphernalia adorning the walls, and was surprised by how much its baleful glare reminded me of Crabella's. Hey, I get it: crab joint, crabby hostess, funny, yeah RIIIIIGHT!

Then there was the food. It was a study in minimalism at best: my plate consisted of a few smatterings of seafood leftovers and a couple of sad little crushed crab legs. Yes, I said crushed, not cracked, probably by the boot heel of my Mistress, lending a depth to my torture that I'm sure Mistress Crabella would have bared a fang over, had she not been busy pouring hot oil on someone's open wounds or something. After leaving the place I stopped off for a burger and headed home.

A week or so passed before I returned to my notes about my crustaceous misadventure, but the memory had burned in my mind every day since. After typing with a vengeance that almost made my fingers bleed, all I had left to finish was the restaurant's hours and such to cap off a real smoker of a review. So I called information -- no such listing. I know I didn't dream this, I really was at a crab joint -- so I decide to go back to the crab dungeon to get the info I needed.

"See I knew it was here," I thought to myself as I reached for the door, then I saw the note taped inside the window. "CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE," punctuated by a chain around both door handles. Stepping back I thought, "This is like some weird 'Twilight Zone' episode." Then just as the "Twilight Zone" theme song started in my head, it hit me. I am the psychic food critic! I can see and shape the future with my word possessor! I can close down restaurants! I alone have the power!

Reeling from the giddiness of my psychic power I stumbled across the entry-way into this classy deli joint. Dean, the owner, came out to greet me, and before I could ask about the untimely demise of Mistress Crabella, the smell of French bread and spiced meats make me immediately hungry, so I figured, LET'S EAT! I decided to let fate continue to guide my day and let him suggest what I should have.

The Dagwood sandwich was the verdict and away he went. It turns out that Friday is actually "FRYday" at Delorenzo's, because they give out a complimentary basket of steak fries to munch on while you wait. The place had a real classy vibe: fresco-style still life murals on every wall, and a couple monster gift baskets on display, too big for even me to carry. It turns out this place does gift baskets, catering, and even serves made-to-order waffles and omelets for breakfast ... and the coffee is on them between 7 and 8 am! The crowd was a nice mix of business types and computer geek freaks, and then, of course, those of us with psychic abilities shaping the world quietly and secretly right under the very noses of the unsuspecting masses. I was shaken from my plans of world domination by the arrival of my lunch. There it sat before me, three-and-a-half inches high in all its splendor. Three pieces of marbled rye layered with ham turkey, bacon, Swiss and American cheeses, various veggies, and condiments including the "secret sauce." Although my psychic abilities allowed me in on the secret, I'll keep the details to myself, saying simply that it's so good, if I listed the ingredients, you'd eat this paper. This was one massive sandwich, even for a master of the universe like myself, but I dove in both hands (that's what it took to hold it) and devoured it. Now that was a meal! All in all this had been a gem of a lunch experience to come from a fiasco of a dinner. Too weird, kind of a yin and yang of 1801 Wynkoop. If you want a really good and pretty cheap lunch experience, Delorenzo's is the place. Hey, in light of my new found telekinetic abilities maybe this place will be open seven days a week and stay open even later. Well, the owner actually said they were planning to do that anyway. Nonetheless, it is I who continues to shape and mold the Denver dinning scene ... me, yes, MEEEEE!

Next I may turn my powers of telekinetic persuasion to politics where I will bring the country to a standstill by confusing the vote counters and ... uh, oh yeah, I already did that. A

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