Coupon Caper: A Delicious Debacle

Recently, two of my friends scored an awesome Restaurant.com coupon to a trendy restaurant in town. Being that our friendship is based primarily on cheapness and a common yearning for a good deal, the three of us were in a terrific mood.
spance

All we had to do was spend $35 to get $25 off the bill. We arrived at the restaurant and immediately began calculating how to spend the exact amount of money that would yield the maximum amount of savings.

It was all about the numbers. What we actually wanted didn't matter so much.

Approximately one hour later we were ready to order. Despite having taken our sweet time to decide, we begged the server to let us have the happy hour appetizer price even though it was one minute too late. She pitied us and obliged.

Spirits were sky high, on account of all the savings. We were living the high life, but all that changed when the server returned with some important news. We had misread the coupon and actually needed to spend $50 for the discount. This was dramatic and funny. I decided to be macho and solve the problem.

Normally we would never indulge in restaurant dessert, so we were feeling pretty high class. All of this was mitigated by the fact that the deal wasn't looking quite so good anymore, but the mood was still jovial.

That's when the server returned with more bad news - Happy hour appetisers didn't count toward the $50 total. We handled the news with maturity and grace.

We ordered more cakes. This time, it was of the to-go variety, as we could hardly handle any more food. Once it arrived, we learned that to-go items didn't count toward the $50 minimum. This was too much to handle.

I suggested that they bring the cakes out on a plate, we could each take a bite, and then we'd ask for a doggy bag. That seemed to appeal to their logic and the plan was set in motion.

The cakes and coffees were really starting to pile up, but we had to keep spending in order to save. I think the sever felt bad, because when she came back with our bill, she also brought one heck of a great story.

"You see the man in the blue shirt over there? Well, he's the owner. The other day, he brought his six-year-old son to the restaurant and the kid was being loud and acting up. He poured sugar all over the table and then..."

It was an enchanting evening.

(To read about another adventure involving this trio, visit http://leemar.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/ye-olde-blog-post/. It's about the time we patronized the World's Largest Renaissance Festival (using discounted tickets, of course).)