Last Saturday, Laura and I were out and about when chance brought us to BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, an American restaurant chain, headquartered in Huntington Beach, California, with over two hundred locations nationwide. Not that you asked.

“I haven’t had that salad I like in a while!” she said.

“I haven’t spent thirty bucks for a light meal in a while!” I replied.

We headed in.

We’ll hit BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse a couple times a year. Mostly around dinner and mostly when there’s a twenty-or-more minute wait to eat. However, as chance would have it, we arrived around 4:30 in the afternoon.

“Wow,” I thought to myself. “I’m finally eating-dinner-at-four-thirty years old. That’s kinda sad.” But, then again, not having to wait twenty-or-more minutes for a small device to flash and vibrate before being seated is nice.

Given the hour, most of the restaurant stood empty. The only patrons in sight sat scattered in a semi-circle around the bar, eyes transfixed on the ubiquitous Sports Screens. By law in Texas, every public food and drink establishment must display at least six (6) Sports Screens per one hundred (100) customers or be subject to a fine.

We got our beverages. And after looking over the seventy-three page menu two or three times, the server came over and asked if we had any questions.

“What’s the soup du jour?” I asked.

“Well, that’s where every day we feature a different soup.”

“Cool, I’ll have the tomato bisque.”

On top of that, I ordered “flatbread.” Laura ordered the salad-what-brought-us-here.

My soup arrived quickly and it was both hot and tasty. I really should figure out how to make this at home. Later, our main dishes arrived just as Serena Williams fought the final minutes of battle with Bianca Andreescu. (We couldn’t hear it though, because, by Texas Law, the only audio emanating from the Sports Screens must come from The Football.)

Laura’s salad was pretty large. So much so, I think she only ate a quarter of it. My flatbread was pretty flat. It certainly sounded appealing, based on the menu description. But the dish that hit the table lacked greatly in toppings. The two end pieces were devoid of any toppings whatsoever, amounting to little more than thin, slightly-burnt toast.

I ate them anyway because — darn it — I paid for this. And it made sense to eat the worst parts first and save the bestest middle part for last. However, I was starting to fill up after only halfway through. That, on top of the soup, and I thought, “I’ll just have this later.”

The bill showed up. Including tip, the final total was around $43.

“Seriously?” I thought as I shook my head.

I realize for some people this might seem like nothing. But when it comes to food I’m as basic and frugal as it gets. For something so fleeting (and filling) as a simple meal, I can’t really enjoy a $100 version ten times more than a $10 version.

So we packed up our leftovers and finished running the day’s errands, which included a semi-hefty stop at The Home Depot, the largest home improvement retailer in the United States, with over twenty-two hundred locations in North America.

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The next morning we get in the car. Rachel looks at the floor under the seat and asks, “Did you guys have some leftovers in here?”

“Seriously?” I thought as I shook my head.

Okay, so that $43 actually ended up paying for:

• One quarter of a salad
• A cup of soup
• Two thin slices of slightly burnt toast
• Iced tea

Oh, and the cost also went toward this blog post. So I guess it wasn’t a total loss.