I had the distinct misfortune to experience one of the worst meals of my adult life this past Saturday. I’m not a food snob, but the meal I’m about to describe was so excruciatingly bad it may very well make me sound like one.

While staying at The Depot in Minneapolis, my parents asked the staff for recommendations on nearby restaurants, and, possibly out of spite following my folks’ decision not to eat at the hotel, suggested The Old Spaghetti Factory a few blocks down on Washington. My dad fondly remembered the OSF we’d visited in St. Louis a couple of decades ago, and despite my best efforts to get him to reconsider, eventually convinced us to go.

I fully expected the meal to be bad, but have to report that The Old Spaghetti Factory managed to exceed all expectations, reaching levels of awfulness not experienced in recent memory. On my 1-10 food scale, with “1″ being held by my mom’s disastrous 1985 attempt at a vegetarian stew–stew that actually caused my brother to throw up on our dining room table–and “9″ being held by Lisa and my delicious dinner at Kiki’s Bistro in Chicago, I’d rate my dinner at the OSF a, uh, 1.5.

It wasn’t just horrible, it was fucking horrible. (And this from someone who’s trying not to swear on his blog, because, you know, the kid may read it one day.)

You know what? I’m not sure I can do this. I’m getting so sick just thinking about this meal I almost can’t bring myself to describe it. (I had the No. #2. Talk about bad foreshadowing.) Seriously, they fucked up spaghetti. I repeat, THEY FUCKED UP SPAGHETTI. How do you fuck up spaghetti!? Is it a special gift, a talent? I wasn’t aware bad spaghetti was even possible, but now consider myself enlightened. The noodles had the consistency and strength of thin strings of toothpaste, the sauce tasted like watered down ketchup, and the copious piles of parmesan cheese made my nose burn. I could have gone down to Lunds’, spent a total of $5 on a cheap box spaghetti, bottled pasta sauce and a loaf of bread and given four people a meal that in every conceivable way would’ve proven itself superior to the crap we were served Saturday.

Seriously, stay away from The Old Spaghetti Factory. Far, far away.