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I am constantly plagued by the need to “get a good deal” on everything. Overpaying for things is only slightly higher than “a sharp stick in the eye” on my list of fun things to do. With that in mind, I still realize that it is impossible to get a bargain on everything in life and when these times present themselves it’s best to just roll with the punches. To best illustrate this point, let me tell you a story that happened to me last weekend.
The day started out quite lovely with a walk to the local greasy spoon restaurant to have some of the world’s greatest cinnamon rolls with an omelet chaser (mmmmmm…delicious!). It was a beautifully sunny day so the whole family decided that it would be fun to go on a hike (got to work off all those calories from breakfast). We piled everyone (myself, Mrs. Franco, Mama Franco who was in town on a visit, and Baby Francisca) into the car and headed out to the mountains for an afternoon hike.
After a full day of hiking and enough digital pictures to crash all of Google’s servers (p.s. Mama Franco is obsessed with taking photos, which has only gotten worse since the baby’s arrived), we were hungry, tired and ready to call it a day. At this point we had two options 1) drive straight home and pick up something quick and easy (a la Taco Bell) on the way or 2) stop at a nearby local dive…we chose the latter.
We pulled up to a small restaurant that was an old converted rail car oozing of local flavor and decided to give it a shot. The parking lot was fairly empty (strike 1 - not a good sign when trying a completely new and foreign restaurant), but the rail car motif won us over. The sign in front of the door boasted of the beef rib special and world famous hamburgers (strike 2 - self promoting signs claiming to have “world famous” or “the best” of anything rarely, if ever, live up to the billing). As we walked in through the front door we were greeted by a friendly, yet somewhat flustered hostess. She politely told us that we were welcome to sit down if we could find a table. Puzzled by her comments and the lack of cars out front, we turned the corner to see an almost empty dinning room (strike 3 - semi-crazy hostess). Non-the-less, we found a table (after countless nanoseconds of searching) and began looking over the menu.
Everything on the menu was priced at a premium, which we hoped would carry over to the food. Based on the endorsement of the sign out front and our waitress’ (who doubled as the semi-crazy hostess) suggestion that we get the ribs (”the meat just falls off the bone”), we ordered up a blue cheese burger and a plate of beef ribs. While waiting for our food to arrive we saw two large parties come in, sit down, open a menu, and promptly leave (strike 4 - starting to feel like I’ve been duped). During this same time, our favorite hostess made a nice couple wait for 5 minutes while she cleared a napkin and a straw from one of the tables before she would seat them (did I mention the dining car is close to empty?).
When the food did finally arrive, the “blue cheese” burger (no actual blue cheese, just blue cheese dressing) was nothing more than something you might find in a convenience store microwave and the ribs were “a battle” as Mama Franco nicely put it (Mrs. Franco’s comment at the end of the meal was that she had more meat in her teeth than in her stomach). Our very nice waitress (she really was nice and quite enthusiastic about the food) decided to comp us a couple desserts which she swore by but turned out to be nothing more than syrupy berries (”fresh” blackberry cobbler) and chocolate syrup drizzled over dry bread (bread “pudding”). Needless to say, the desserts did not save the day.
The great thing about the evening was how we all chose to react to the situation. Rather than letting the expensive, substandard (who am I kidding…it was bad) meal ruin what had already been a great day, we chose to laughed through the whole experience making a hilarious memory that will not soon be forgotten. Life is full of curve balls and wrenches (to use two separate metaphors), so when they come your way, soften the blow by “rolling with the punches.”
Ciao,
Franco
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Great Post!!!