It Was a Nice Birthday Celebration

Until we got the bill

Photo by Esther T on Unsplash

We always go out to celebrate ours and our kids’ birthdays. Yesterday was my son’s birthday, and he chose a locally owned seafood restaurant. We’ve been there many times, and it’s one of our favorites.

We were only 8 in attendance: my husband and myself, my daughter and her boyfriend, and my son and his girlfriend, who brought 2 of her kids with her. She brought her youngest, a little boy, and her oldest, a teenage girl.

We ordered and talked while we waited for the food to come out. We had ordered an appetizer to start. The place was pretty full and loud. My son’s girlfriend and her daughter have little mousey voices, so I wasn’t able to hear what they ordered.

When the food arrived, I saw that the teen girl had ordered crab legs. They were huge!! I had never seen such huge crab legs. They were probably about 3 times the size of the ones I’ve seen at Red Lobster. She didn’t even know how to eat them, which made me wonder why she had even ordered them.

We all ate, then the server brought out the cake I had taken. We sang happy birthday and ate the cake. I then asked the server for the check.

Because the place was very dark and I had a hard time reading the menu, I didn’t bother to look at the tiny details on the receipt. I only looked at the total and checked to see if they had included the gratuity, which they had. I’ve previously made the mistake of adding a gratuity when it was already included in the total, so now I always check that.

The total was more than I expected, but we paid the check and left.

On our way home, my husband was trying to figure out why the bill was so much. It was almost $450.00. I had the receipt in my purse in the back seat, so we couldn’t pull it out. We were mentally calculating the amounts of the meals. Four of them were between $30 and $35. My daughter and my son’s girlfriend ordered soup & salad, which was $16 each. The boy ordered from the kid’s menu. The only amount we didn’t know was the crab legs. He did mention that he heard the girl ask my son what Market Value meant. I didn’t hear that.

When we got home, my husband went straight to let the dog out. I went into the kitchen with the bright light and pulled out the receipt from my purse. I said OH MY GOD!!

My husband came in and asked what’s wrong? I said Those damn crab legs were $140.00!!

Then he said OH MY GOD!!

He told me not to tell our daughters because they would have a fit. I will probably tell my son because I’m sure he’ll be asking me about it next time we see him. He works in finance and is always wanting to know how much things cost.