One thing about having a child in Kindergarten is the sheer volume of paperwork that child comes home with. Seriously. What happened to the push toward becoming a paperless society. Ever heard of that?
Every couple weeks, his school has a fund raiser at a local restaurant wherein we are urged to dine there and some of the proceeds go to benefit his elementary school. Usually the notice goes right into recycling and I pretend I never saw it. (This, by the way is my strategy on most things. The amount of crap I have given away/recycled/lost/trashed is mind boggling.)
But here's the thing. Drew was out of town this week on a 40th birthday fun-fest with some friends so I was desperate creative when it came to meals this week. Friday night I picked them up and decided we'd try out this pizza place that keeps urging us to share in the fun family experience of a pizza buffet.
I should have known to turn the car around immediately when I noticed it was in the Wal-Mart shopping center. Never a good sign. Or when I noticed there was an entrance door and an exit door and they took great pains to be sure no one used the wrong door for the wrong activity. Or when I walked in and looked up at the menu on the wall and noticed that the three of us were going to eat an entire meal for under $10.
The basis gist is that you go through the line and there are various pizzas from which to choose and you can get as much or as little as you like. If basic pepperoni isn't your thing, maybe Mac-n-Cheese or Baked Potato pizza is what your heart's been craving. Behind the line are about 7 surly teenagers in uniform replenishing the stock.
My kids stuck with the basic flavors and I opted for the meager salad bar. The thought of that much greasy dough made me physically ill, frankly. Naturally, there were no drink options other than soda (Hello? Ever heard of WATER?) but they did offer an entire selection of "dessert" pizzas. Think basic pizza dough only with toppings like apples and cinnamon, blueberry, chocolate, etc. Really. Because the 12 pieces of pizza you just ate wasn't enough refined sugar and flour. You need more.
But the most disturbing aspect of this was simply the crowd. There's a certain look I have come to recognize simply as "inbred." In one room, I saw more obese and inbred kids than I have ever seen all together. I don't mean pudgy, I mean 4 and 5 year olds shoving pizza down their throats as the the tops of their feet spilled over their shoes. Flip flops cutting off circulation. Lots of "Mama" and "Diddy." Good God.
So after about 15 minutes of that, I told BoyChild to wrap it up in a napkin and he could finish it in the car. We found the door marked "Exit" and did just that.
