I'm a big kid now

Welcome to Restaurant Reviews, an all-new non-regular feature here on IYROOBTY. Today, I will be writing about the midscale Italian eatery and entertainment chain known as Chuck E. Cheese.

There is nothing like a kid's very first trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Why, I still remember mine like it was last week. And that's because it was.

Last Sunday, I ventured into one of Chuck E's 542 locations. My first impression? It was like Aladdin's Castle had started serving pizza!

Remember when you were a kid and your mom would come and get you out of the arcade and tell you it was time to go eat and that maybe you could come back later but there was never a later? Well, problem solved.

At Chuck E. Cheese, you can play and eat, then play some more. Kids of all ages can enjoy the fun. Well, except for the climby thingie, which apparently has an age limit even though there was none clearly marked. I really don't think there should be an age limit on fun.

Now on to the ratings:

Entertainment - 8.5 (out of 10)

Kudos for the number and variety of arcade games. There was also the climby thing and a giant slide. Plenty to keep you, er, your kids, occupied.

I deducted half a point here because the football toss game stopped giving me tickets. And I was dominating, too! Also, Mario Kart was NEVER open.

I took away another point for the animatronics stage show which is going on pretty much the entire time you're there. I mean, it was interesting enough. I just think if those kids ever figure out that's just a bunch of metal and wires and not a real person up there, you're gonna have some crying kids. It'll be like finding out there's no Milli Vanilli.

Can I be completely honest? Going into the whole thing, I thought Chuck E. was really gonna be there. It's a little disappointing, that's all.

Food - 5.5

Well, there's pizza. And I think I saw a salad bar on my way to the restroom. Honestly, you don't even really notice the food so much. You just wolf it down as quickly as possible so that you can get back to the games.

Ambience - 8

Fun. Noisy. Laid back. I deducted two points here for the rude six-year-old girl who kept climbing onto the ramp and stealing my skeeballs then throwing them down the wrong lane. I mean seriously, where was her legal guardian? What a dark day for parenting.

Also, if the thought of forty kids running around mostly unsupervised all over the place bothers you, then that'll take the ambience rating down a few notches to about a... negative twelve.

Value - 10

Where else can you do a half a million things, all at a quarter to three? Oh, wrong slogan.

All games cost one token. Granted, each game lasts an average of forty-two seconds. But still, high marks for making things simple. Most kids find the ticket counting machine pretty fun, so you can usually kill an extra ten minutes or so per kid on that.

Then there are the prizes. We cashed in our tickets for a cool glider airplane, an inflatable hammer, and some Pop Rocks. At what age will I stop being amused by Pop Rocks? You might think it would have already happened by now, but apparently not.

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience. However, I would like to make a couple of recommendations. As I do have my very own blog on which I sometimes write restaurant reviews, I think I've earned that right. Number one, be sure to come well-stocked with hand sanitizer. Also, if they could like maybe put kids who steal other kids' skeeballs in time out or something, that would be great.

"You can hear the cries from the carnival rides, the pinball bells and the skeeball slides..."

Fresh blog posts while you wait

Some men are inspired by nature. Some are inspired by women. A few--OK, one--is inspired by fast food establishments. And that man is me.

How else can one explain blog entries about a certain unappreciated dollar tip at Sonic, not picking up a girl at Hardees, and the KFC high talker? Perhaps it's because eating out and going to the grocery store comprise about ninety percent of my interaction with the outside world. Or maybe it's because... well, actually, it's probably that ninety percent thing.

Speaking of the high talker, I got him again last week. No sooner had I ordered my delicious lemon parfait than I started thinking that lilting, high-pitched voice sounded familiar. Sure enough, it was him. So that's three trips, and I've called him ma'am every time. If I ever become famous, I'm hiring him as my personal assistant. It's the only way to ever assuage my guilt.

Yesterday I found myself inspired again, this time by Subway. Normally at the drive thru, they take your order, get your money, give your change, then go and make your sandwich. After a couple of minutes, they return with your sandwich, and I usually try to say something cool like, "Jared! Holla!" as I pull away.

Well, the drive thru attendant yesterday seemed like she was newish. She took my order but didn't take my money, just went to make my sandwich. While she was gone, I started thinking about what if she never asks for my money.

That led to me composing an entire blog post in my head about how this must be one way Obama is trying to stimulate the economy and help people out. It's called Pay-Is-Optional Fast Food. If you want to pay, you can. But if you don't feel like you can afford it, just take your sandwich and the government will subsidize Subway later.

It all seemed hilarious as I was sitting there waiting on my six inch Subway club on wheat. (Now? Not so much.) I smiled at my own genius, already picturing the Jared "Yes We Can" ad campaign, and was excited about coming home and blogging it. Then the girl came back to the window, took my money and gave me my sandwich, basically ruining my entire story... and possibly our nation's economic future.

I come up with all these brilliant ideas. But when I try and put them into action, these fast food attendants don't seem to want to cooperate. It can be quite vexing, as you might imagine.

So I guess the bottom line is nothing really happened at Subway yesterday. Unless you count what went on inside my head.

"Life moved and I stopped to taste it. I drank it up 'til it left me wasted. But my rains have bled a softer red. Oh, you should see the world inside my head..."

The curious case of the drive-thru attendant

I'm not sure if has to do with being from the South, or how I was raised, or because when I was little my uncle would give my cousins a whoopin' anytime they dared address any adult without saying sir or ma'am. But I say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" to most all women.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by a local fast food establishment to order a dessert. A woman's voice came on the thing and I placed my order, which included me referring to her as "ma'am" a couple of times.

When I got up to the window, all I saw was this guy. He took my money and handed me my order. That's odd, I thought. (That it was a guy, not that he took my money and handed me my order.) But I know sometimes they'll have one person with the headset taking the order and another person just handing out the food--or at least that's how it is when I imagine the innerworkings of a fast food establishment--so I didn't think much more of it.

Then this past Thursday, we ordered from the same place for lunch and I went to pick it up. It was sort of a long order, so there were quite a few "yes ma'ams" and "no ma'ams." When I got to the window, the same guy was there. Except this time, he started chatting with me.

"It's finally warming up out there," he said.

My friends, he spoke with the voice of a woman. A real life high talker! Not a loud talker, a high talker. Just like the Seinfeld episode.

I wasn't able to look at him because I felt bad and also because it was taking everything I had not to laugh. But on the other hand, it was such a rare phenomenon that I was tempted to call someone just to let them hear.

He seemed like a nice guy, and this was the second time in a week that I had called him "ma'am." But what could I do? He sounded more like a woman than most women I know. They put him in the drive-thru where no one can see him. Plus we're basically in the sir and ma'am capital of the world here. It's entrapment!

I'm sure many "normal" people would let the story end there. But not me. Oh no. This wasn't over. For the next couple of days, it was all I could think about. I jovially shared with family and friends my story of meeting the high talker. I even pondered the possibility of a Bone Reality Tour, with the high talker and my Festivus Pole as the featured stops. Or, the only stops. But at the same time, I felt terrible about the whole ordeal.

After much consideration, I devised a plan. I would go back up there and no matter what, I would say "yes sir" and "no sir" when I ordered to make the high talker feel better. It seemed like the natural thing to do.

It was perfect. So inspired. Yet so simple. I imagined how good the high talker would feel to finally be called sir after hearing ma'am day after day after day. It made me proud that I was such a good person.

I carried out my plan yesterday. Of course by this time, I was sick of eating at the place--it's far from my favorite anyway--so I decided I'd just get a coke. What follows is the unedited version of the conversation that transpired shortly before 1:00 PM Central Time Saturday afternoon:

"Welcome to KFC, may I take your order?"

"Yes. Uh, yes sir." (I almost forgot, right off the bat!) "I'd like a medium Mountain Dew, please."

"One medium Mountain Dew. Is that all?"

"Yes sir."

"That'll be two-fifteen."

$2.15?!?! Suddenly coke has become more expensive than gasoline? Wow. Still, I figured it would be well worth it to right this wrong and bring this episode to a happy conclusion. I pulled up to the window and, um, well... it seems the high talker wasn't working.

Turns out there was but one flaw in my carefully designed plan. And that was it. So basically I paid two dollars and fifteen cents to call a 16-year-old kid "sir."

I'm sure many "normal" people would let the story end there...

"I won't make the same mistake by coming here again, cos I can't tell difference between the hers and hims. No, I can't tell the boys from the girls. And friends, it's really messing up my world..."

Letting out my inner Costanza

After reading J-Mo's post about one of the great sociological questions of our time, I decided to go to Sonic for lunch today.

So I'm sitting there and of course I have no idea how much to tip or even if I should tip at all. Because the place is like a gigantic roundabout anyway. Who knows what to do. You pretty much just hope to get out of there without running into anything.

Anyway, my order comes to $5.39. I briefly consider giving her $6 and telling her to keep the change, but that never seems like enough to me. I feel like the carhop is standing there thinking, "Gee thanks. This will pay for my little brother's operation to fix his lazy eye."

Next, I consider giving her a $10 bill. Then as she's giving me the change I can make it a point to return one of the dollars to her. This seems like a pretty good idea, except who wants to break a ten. Those big bills just disappear once you break them.

So then I dig around in the coin repository that is the console of my car and find thirty-nine cents. I don't have a five, so I decide that I'll give her six one dollar bills and thirty-nine cents in change. That way, she'll be getting a full dollar tip. That should help her brother out.

Well, she comes, I pay, she leaves. Story of my life. But she doesn't count my ones. She just takes the money and walks away. So then I'm thinking that she's thinking I gave her exact change and has no idea I even tipped her. I mean, she said thank you. But it was just a regular thank you, not an oh-thank-you-so-much-kind-sir-for-my-tip-is-there-anything-else-I-can-do-for-you-today thank you. So basically, I got NO CREDIT for my tip.

Oh sure, when she gets back inside and starts going thru her money, she'll find a nice little Washingtonian surprise. But what good does that do me? Isn't the whole point of tipping at Sonic so I don't get dirty looks or feel guilty?

Oh, it's not?

Oh... Well, nevermind then. Forget I said anything.

"If you wanna go and take a ride with me, we three wheelin' in the fo' with the gold D's. Oh why do I live this way? Hey! Must be the money..."