OK, for New Year's Eve, I was going to follow up a hastily arranged session with my psychologist by going to this place close to work. I suddenly got obsessed with this place, a restaurant I ate at a year ago. It was lauded by City Pages, and that was enough for me to go there again, and on the last day of 2014, as a salute to myself for getting through another year alive. And I made sure to get there before 6; checked their website and that's the time their Happy Hour ends.
I was mad at myself when I took a right when I should have taken a left, but I parked across the street at around 5:25. (Helped that I got to see my shrink about a half-hour earlier than usual.) But my heart sank when I looked at the window into the restaurant and saw nothing but darkness reflected back at me. Man, I guess I should've asked if they were going to be open New Year's Eve instead of assuming they would be.
So at this point I was at a crossroads. And all I did was look across the street at the coffeeshop, see that was closed, look at the donut shop past this restaurant I wanted to go to and saw that was closed, then looked past that to see a pizza place that was open. I've been to this place, this year as well as last year. It was pretty good, I just didn't figure to eat there for New Year's Eve because I've already eaten there once before in the calendar year. But there was no where else as far as my eye could see that was open, and dammit, it's New Year's Eve! So I went in there. Thank goodness they were open till 9; unfortunately their Happy Hour ended at 5. No matter; I sat down and ordered.
And as soon as I sat down I regretted it. It was December 31, 2014, the expiration date of many of the coupons of the fast food places I had cut and put into my back pocket, precisely for times like this. I guess I rationalized it by saying I didn't want to just eat fast food for New Year's Eve, but that was kind of weak. Then I realized that there was another restaurant about a mile down the cross-street that I also had wanted to go to. It too had a recommendation on City Pages, or at least a dish. Why didn't I eat there instead of a place I didn't even think about going to that night? I excused that regret away by saying that if that restaurant was closed as well, well, I would have nowhere to go to eat. Well, I did have the fast food coupons, but I was able not to think about that.
So I sat and drank a good beer and ate a pretty good personal pan pizza, then paid about $20 for the whole shebang. And then I really regretted it because this restaurant a mile down the cross-street sells this recommended dish for $7.50, less than half. Final insult to injury came when I traveled home down the cross-street and saw that this other place indeed was open on New Year's Eve.
Why did I panic? Why did I settle for the next thing I saw with my open eyes? Why couldn't I be patient with myself and, maybe, decide to eat at home? At the very least I would have either thought of or drove across a place I would have wanted to eat instead. Again, the pizza was good, and the service was good, and the girl serving me was cute. But if I stepped back and thought, there were some other places where I would have preferred to have gone instead, and I didn't because I panicked. And so I wasted all these coupons in my back pocket and wasted a prime opportunity to go to a place I kind of wanted to go to for a while.
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I did have time, however -- or maybe I am rationalizing this too -- to eat this place Friday evening. I was going to go the University of Minnesota men's hockey game, but I decided to call the auto body shop to see if they still were working on my car. Well, they weren't -- not because they were done, but because the parts they sent were wrong, and the replacement part the guy found online was going to cost me $550. I love my car, but not enough to replace weatherstripping for that amount. So it was better for me to just go to the auto body shop to pick up my car.
And because of that I had my early evening free ... well, besides from all that "cleaning up in anticipation of my parents coming home" stuff, but fuck that. So I decided to make up for the mistake I made Wednesday and eat at this ... let's just call it an ethnic restaurant on Friday. What I didn't expect was that there wouldn't be any booths for this solitary guy to eat alone without anyone seeing me. The food was good (the recommended dish was OK, I preferred the soup and the indigenous soft drink) and the server was nice and cute, but ... I guess I don't regret going Wednesday now as much as I did after I sat down at the pizza place. Oh, and the final bill plus tip came out to $12.75 -- not double, but a substantial savings, which is something I can't disregard.
One other plus: The Gopher men's hockey team lost at home. Missed a defeat. That's a good thing. Hey, maybe I don't regret as much as I initially thought!
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