Sunday #9: Birthday Dinner in the Big City

I didn't make dinner February 27th. That was Max's birthday and we had to take him out for dinner because we'd taken his brother, Simon, out to dinner for his February 25th birthday.

I would have rather made him dinner. Surely I could have concocted something better than what he picked. But no, we live in an equal-equal kind of world, and that meant if Simon got taken out to dinner, we'd need to take Max out too.

So Max's dinner was technically our "Sunday Dinner." Even though Simon's shouldn't count, let's review to have something to compare Max's choice to.

Simon chose Outback Steakhouse for dinner. All three of us (Max was feeling cruddy and stayed with grandma) ended up ordering essentially the same meal. Steak and two sides. I also had a salad. All the food groups were represented.









We also had a greasy appetizer and shared a generously portioned sundae. But the point is that this was an actual Dinner.


Two kinds of potato equal
one vegetable.



Oh, wait. Let me tell you about this Sundae. It was made with Blue Bell ice cream and it was wonderful. Man. It was good. I'd regularly cheat on the Tomato and Basil Baron with the Blue Bell ice cream man. This was French Vanilla, which I don't usually get excited for, but this was like the best custardy frozen creaminess ever. Super Vanilla is what it was.

Okay, my point is that Simon chose a place with actual meals. Max chose the Old Country Buffet.

Man. Have you ever been to one of those? We have!

Basically our rule of thumb is that if the place is busy we don't go. The busier it is, the more stretched the cleaning staff is, the more likely some boogerfingered bastard is going to finger the food on the line - just... no. This means no going on weekends, particularly when church has just let out because it's disgusting and full. 

And this was Sunday, and Max wanted to go. So we said okay. We got in line and it was pretty long. We convinced Max that it was too busy to be any good and did he want to go somewhere else? 

(we've done this to the boys before - once when they wanted to go there was a senior travel bus in the parking lot and we convinced them it was pointless because the old people from the bus would have eaten all of the macaroni and cheese.  I don't know that we were actually lying.)

He chose Olive Garden. Yes!

So, the trade off for allowing us to flee the OCB was that we would also take him to Krispy Kreme since he wouldn't have as many dessert choices.

Max was very concerned that we would cheat him out of this somehow. On our way to the car he saw the KK in the distance and a little further beyond that Shari's (Restaurants and Pie.)

Have you never been? You're not missing out. They do some okay hash browns and eggs, but as a dinner sort of place they suck. Now, I realize they're a diner, I'm not expecting much and still...

Yeah, that's pretty accurate.

But anyway, it's what Max wanted.  He got the Three Ring Sampler. It was 900 calories. Thankfully it was too disgusting for him to do more than eat the cheese sticks.













Do you see any malevolence in this picture? No, he's pretty happy with himself. Basket of Fried. Milkshake - if Max were released into the wild this would be his natural diet.

So - that was Sunday #9. That and TWO BOXES OF KRISPY KREMES.

We're getting him a cardiac bypass for his 12th birthday.