As a couple, there are a lot of things my wife and I are good at and a lot of things weâre not good at. Iâm afraid the latter is more prevalent, but whoâs counting? One of the things weâre worst at is using gift cards, especially those credit-card gift cards that are supposed to be accepted everywhere but never work. The odds of running that piece of plastic through the machine without mishap are stacked heavily against you. March of 2011 I bought a new cell phone that came with a mail-in rebate, which came back to me in the form of one of those cards. It took me until about week before it expired this year to use every penny on the thing. At Christmas of last year, someone gave me another credit-card gift card that expires in 2020. It was like opening up a nine-year curse.
Itâs not that we donât appreciate the gift cards (or the free money they offer). Believe me, we do. The problem is, we lived without money for so long, we have no idea how to treat ourselves, and rarely are gift cards for things you need. And weâre still stuck in that âonly spend for what you needâ mentality. Furthermore, weâre terrible at keeping track of the cards. They sit on top of our microwave, gathering dust, like that task you promise to do but never quite get around to. Occasionally, weâll scoop them up, flip through them (some going back 5 years), and wonder aloud, âDid you know we have $200 at Barnes & Noble! We should really use these.â But we donât need anything from Barnes & Noble, so back in the pile they go.
The most longstanding cards in the deck were two gift cards given to us by my mother-in-law for The Cheesecake Factory. They totaled $100 and dated back 7 years. These surfaced time and time again, and each time, we promised ourselves to use them. It would be good for us to get out. But for two people who travel like itâs 1812 and havenât really left the city limits in our lifetime, Schaumburg may as well be India. About a month ago, we were going through that pile of shame and resolved to use The Cheesecake Factory once and for all. And surprisingly, we kept to our promise.
Several editions ago, Sun Day Dining Columnist Sam Geati wrote one of his stellar reviews on The Cheesecake Factory and sang their praises for five straight columns. The only negative was that he decreed The Cheesecake Factory was a little pricey. Our visit to The Cheesecake Factory lived up Samâs promise. It was outstanding. Except we disagree with Sam on the price issue.
We knew weâd never make it back out to The Cheesecake Factory again (in the next 20 years), so our execution was nothing short of a low-grade military strike with preplanned internet recon to their website and tactical workups: You distract the drinks and appetizers while I sneak up on the entrees; weâll flank the coffee and desserts, and the bill wonât know what hit it. Our mission: use all $100 at all cost. No George Washingtons left standing. Take no prisoners but for doggie bags. Like lots of military operations, this didnât go as easily as planned.
Have you ever tried to spend $100 at a upper-mid range restaurant on two people when one of you doesnât drink and the other only moderately drinks? Itâs almost impossible. And itâs not dining out, but shopping.
When the host gave us our menus, it was like walking through the aisles of a grocery store. My wife took out her calculator (lame, I know, but does that surprise you based on whatâs been said so far?), and we quickly realized making it to $100 was going to be like John Candy powering through the Old 96er in The Great Outdoors. What made it worse is that weâre both relatively light eaters. My wife eats about as slow and as little as a toddler, and Iâm more in the 8-year-old range when it comes to appetite: sometimes I eat a lot, sometimes nothing.
Ordering was a long time coming, and only after several âneed another minute?â from our server (and number crunching, made harder by the fact drinks didnât not have prices listed) did we feel confident to take on the menu full charge.
And once we started, I canât imagine what our server thought of us, but she wore a huge grin the entire time. We ordered like kings but ate like paupers. It didnât take long for our server to start practically bringing our carryout containers out with our meals.
If youâre wondering how it all stacked up, review the receipt and notice that for the first time ever, taxes (whose appetite is endless) actually helped, as did an error on the part of our server, who gave us an appetizer double the price of the one we actually ordered.
