TO BUFFET OR NOT TO BUFFET

This is a not a choice that one makes out of joy in all cases. For me it is a choice I make normally when I have relatives come to town.

See, the issue is a matter of how do I manage to salvage some fraction of dignity and my pocketbook while keeping the jerks I'm related to happy. Now I suppose I could take the position of telling them to forget coming to visit, but then that would only give them extra reason to bad mouth and they already to it enough as it is.

So in order to hopefully retain some small modicum of illusion that there is something good in all of this, I play the host. But I sure don't do enjoy savoring the event with any more investment than necessary.

Which makes places with buffets the most appealing for me. I can stuff those visitors for as little as possible. Providing I find one that is opened.

See the problem is that where I live these type of places often don't last very long. Oh we have new ones open from time to time, but normally they never last passed a few weeks.

I think it is because we have too many people who just know how to work these places into bankruptcy. You know they find creative ways of turning a meal into a week's worth of groceries. Just rumors I've heard you understood.

In any case they end up not surviving such plots for very long. So I do have to plan my visits of my relatives accordingly.

That translates into making sure the moment they call and let me know they are coming, I do my best to find the cheapest option possible.

I will confess that I got desperate once and actually creative my own buffet restaurant. Only for the sake of my relatives.

It was a decent illusion as far as I was concerned. True, it was hard finding a waitress outfit the size my secretary Edna Frump needed. She is rather er, challenging to the concept of petite.

Then the other problem was convincing my assistant Willie Bendover he looked good in that bus boy outfit.

But I managed. Long enough to get my relatives fed. I was grateful they didn't attempt to go into the kitchen.

That way I didn't have to lie about those dented cans that I got on sale. It is really the small things that count the most.

Which is why I'm always grateful for places with a true appreciation of the idea of economy when it comes to selling food.