misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

A few weeks back, Jill and I had a craving for T.G.I Fridays.

All three of my readers are well aware I spent a majority of my early twenties at the T.G.I Fridays off of Wolfe Road in Cupertino, California (in the shitty Valco Mall, home to San Jose's one public ice rink). It is common knowledge that the strengths of a T.G.I Fridays are their appetizers and NTN Trivia games. Their spinach and artichoke dip, buffalo chicken tenders, and potato skins are among the best in the business. Washed down with a 22-ounce Widmer's Hefewiezen and kicking Lee's ass in a 15-question countdown, you have yourself a fine night. Now I've never argued their entrees were top-notch, though I used to make fine work of their cajun chicken tenders and spicy fries. In any event, those days provided me many warm memories, and I attempted to relive them for a night by attending my first T.G.I Fridays since I moved from California.

Of course, the wrinkle in my plan was New York. As good as my memories at T.G.I Fridays were, I was only there because there were NO other options in Cupertino (by the way, don't you hate fuckers that use ALL-CAPS to emphasize a word in an email or blog? what does the ALL-CAPS mean? is it like an alternative to an exclamation point? are you trying to say if you were talking, which you aren't, but if you were, you'd be yelling? and besides, my previous statement was full of shit. there are, in truth, other options to T.G.I Fridays in Cupertino. Like that English pub down the street. so I shouldn't have ALL-CAPPED the word NO .. anyway...) Manhattan is a tad different. Going to a T.G.I Fridays here is like going to McDonalds when you're in Prague (which incidentally, I did about every day when I lived there). Regardless, we selected the T.G.I Fridays (sorry for the 19th interruption here, but typing T.G.I Fridays fucking sucks, so I am going to use a nickname from here on out. T.G.I Fridays will herein be referred to as "Tiggys") on 34th and 8th Ave, very near Madison Square Garden. Yes, tourist trap, yes bad food, blah blah, but we did it anyway. We walked upstairs and were seated very promptly, surrounded by the requisite canadian, texan, dutch, ecudorian, and oklahomian tourists. I'm getting excited at this point imagining my order. I'm definately going to start with the Hefeweizen .. then maybe try this new sesame sauce chicken tender appetizer .. move on from there to the cajun chicken tenders, and wrap it up with the double oreo madness .. We are handed our menus, I open it excitedly and WHAT THE FUCK! Did I accidentally confuse a fine steakhouse for a tiggys? Has it been that long since I've been to a tiggys? At what point did they raise their prices three-fold? Spinach and artichoke dip $11.99 plux tax?? Cajun chicken tenders $16.99 ??? A cheeseburger $15.99 ??? The entire point of a tiggys is affordable food. The minute you charge $15.99 for a cheeseburger you are entering the upper echelon of Manhattan restaurants, and tiggys is as far from being a fine restaurant as I am from being a Haitain refugee. The fucking nerve of the tiggys owner of this restaurant for charging these kinds of prices for shitty food. Prices he knows the clueless tourists from around the earth will pay because a tiggys is special to them. Well, it isn't special to me. What makes a tiggys a tiggys is paying 4 dollars for the 22-ounce hefeweizen, and $3.99 for the appetizers (while kicking Lee's ass in trivia, of course). If you wanna charge the kinds of prices this place on 34th was trying to charge, you better change your name, your menu, your servers, your food, your drinks, your inside, your outside, your history, your purpose, your owners, your advertising, your bathrooms, your parking lots, and everything else that makes you a tiggys. It is like charging $45,000 for a Kia. It simply shouldn't happen.

Resultingly, I left a restaurant for the first time in my life. I put the menu down, took a good look around, and walked out (dragging Jill by the hair, which is how she likes me to move her). That is the last look I am ever going to get at the inside of a tiggys.

They just lost their biggest-ever fan.