The Hiker's Guide to History - Joel McMahon's Blog: Love and Waffles

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Holiday advertising has been subdued since the September 2008 crash, slash, and burn, and this Valentine's Day the trend continues. No one is buying, so there ain’t no advertising; and there ain’t no advertising, so no one is buying! My wife and I are still in zero-spend mode, but a moral dilemma rapidly approaches all men who ponder such things: How the hell do Cupid and I stay on budget this weekend?

While I will never confess that I bought my wife’s Valentine gift at Wal*Mart, the Valentine's Day dinner on Saturday night will expose me for the cheap S.O.B that I have become: We are going to Waffle House. Using a brilliant marketing tactic, Waffle House, the beloved Southern mainstay, is offering candlelight dinners on Valentine's Day, complete with white table cloths and black-tied servers. Waffles by candlelight. Pure genius.

Waffle House and I go way back. I remember not being able to go to Waffle House very often when I was a kid because my father, who wrote the entry for “frugal” in Wikipedia, said every Sunday morning after church when those black letters on yellow blocks approached us on our ride home that we could not go to Waffle House because it was "too expensive.” For most of my childhood I thought WAFFLE HOUSE = EXPENSIVE. My father is a "Depression Baby" and feeding five screaming kids is expensive, even at Waffle House.

Once in college and working, I don’t think a week went by that I didn’t eat at a Waffle House. After college I worked in New York, and though New York boasts the finest dining in the world, there ain’t no Waffle House . . . or Chick-fil-A, for that matter, but I digress. Besides, there was a time in my life when I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Waffle House. In the 1980s and 1990s, many who acquired wealth from the rapid rise in the market or who became Internet millionaires in the "new economy" were called “nouveau riche.” I believe the tide has changed, for many who banked solid gains over the last couple of decades are shaking their heads and changing their wicked spending ways. I am one of those. Today, I am “nouveau cheap!”

Yes, this weekend, I am taking my wife to Waffle House for Valentine's dinner. And I am going to order a double waffle and a double order of hash browns . . . scattered, smothered, covered and steamed, of course. And my wife? She can have whatever she wants. After all, it's Valentine's Day!

Care to join us?