Next Time: PB & J’s

I certainly don’t want to judge anyone. Or make generalizations about discount pizza buffets. However, I may have finally reached the point in my life (and this could only have happened after college) where I can say a final goodbye to a certain discount pizza buffet chain.

I don’t remember a time when I was blown away by the service or food quality or cleanliness, but I do remember that at 18 years old, I could tolerate it…even ignore it most of the time if I was hungry enough or with enough people who were equally as oblivious. Last night, though, there was only one ravenous husband to distract me from the way most of the other patrons looked slightly homeless or unshowered or the mysterious smudges on the food trays or the desperate longing for the 15-year old behind the counter to put on some gloves and a hair net. All of these things started as a little knot in my stomach and, by the time Clayton finished round three of his beloved cheddar and bbq pizza, it had turned into a legitimate wave of nausea.

We stayed and, intestinal troubles forgotten, I did enjoy the fudge brownies. We also got in a quick arcade game on the way out, which we never get the chance to do at places like Bonefish and Cheesecake Factory, so it wasn’t a total disappointment.

And here’s where it passes embarrassing and dips right down into mortifying. At a place that offers all you can eat food for less than five dollars a person, we showed up with a buy one get one free coupon. I will let you finish your mocking before I continue.

Are you finished? Ok, one more minute.

Now? Dude, it was just a coupon.

So, we walk in and Clayton starts to pull out the flyer with the coupons, and, before we say anything, this is the conversation we have at the register with the 60-year old woman working that night:

Woman: $10.68.

Us: Huh? 

Woman: $9.99 for two. Comes to $10.68.

Clayton: I thought it was $4.99 a person, and this is buy one get one.

Woman: Can’t use that with any other offer, so the price per person is $5.99. Would come to $11. 25.

Clayton: Huh?

And then Clayton and I try to perform some needlessly complex math problems without our phone calculators (because man would that be embarrassing) to figure out what in the crap this woman is babbling about, and then it dawns on us that there is another coupon on the flyer that would save us another fifty-seven cents. I think that was the beginning of the end for me. I’m all for saving fifty-seven cents, but not when you are getting two dinners on a Friday night for six dollars at a place that does not have a drive-through window. No, we are not millionaires. But I’ve decided that fifty-seven cents is just way too high a price for my dignity.