They see you coming a mile away...

They probably assume you’re coming from many miles away, actually. I’m talking about the vultures who target hotels with food advertising. We fell victim to one of these places while in San Diego a few weeks back. Allow me to relate:

We get this slip of paper slid under our door while we are napping in the afternoon. I look at it, and it’s advertising food.... food at quite reasonable prices, actually! We settle for a “pizza feast” deal that includes a large pizza, 3 sodas, 8 wings, a salad and two brownies for a whopping $10.35! Now, the first rule of anything ought to be “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”. However, the prices for that amount of food were so reasonable, especially for California, that we decided to have a go at it. The food arrived 45 minutes later, and after tipping the delivery man, I opened the packages to check out the booty. The pizza, while not really bad, wasn’t really good either. The “salad” consisted of a handful of lettuce and a few slices of olive thrown into a styrofoam burger container, the brownies looked like they came straight out of a “Little Debbie” package, i.e., they were about 3/8" tall, 2" wide and 3" long, and yes, still had the plastic outer wrap on it. The wings were.... wings. About the only thing that made them notable was the fact that somebody must have soaked them in jalapeno juice overnight, because they were unbearably hot. The whole meal gave me the impression that somebody had gone out to Costco or Sam’s Club, bought a bunch of stuff, cooked it in their own kitchen and peddled it off to unsuspecting tourists. I managed to get down three of the wings before finally giving up. They instantly cleared out my sinuses and started my nose running and eyes watering, which of course caused me to wipe the tears out of my eyes. Important Note Here: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever wipe your eyes with the same fingers you use to eat spicy chicken wings.
Me: “Whoaooahha Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyut!!!” and many other unintelligible half-profanities. Several lessons learned at the cost of 20 clams. Oh yeah, and the words “Free delivery to most areas” was very loosely applied to this ad, as it cost $3.50 to have it delivered to our hotel, where they come at least three times a day to stuff fliers under the doors. Most areas of what? The house they are being cooked up in? But seriously, the cost of the meal was really nothing compared to what we paid for some stuff in Disneyland. More on that next time.