Maybe a reverse auction of sorts. People post their number only if it is lower than all others posted before. So if I post $75, the next person can only post if they have never paid $75, and they’d post (say) “$63 at the Bistro Chi, an Asian Fusion place in downtown Greenwich” or maybe just “$63” until we run out of posters when someone in a village in Cambodia avers they have never spent more than $19.
So I’ll attempt to answer the OP by citing two examples of people I know.
First is my cousin who has spent a significant amount of time in prison. You could not buy him an expensive meal, he would tell you straight out that he would rather you gave him the money rather than take him out to a sit down resturant. I recall one time he helped another cousin move into a new house and was paid $200 and we all went out to eat at a Buffet that cost about $18, he sat out in the car and asked that he be given the $18. I doubt that he ever spent more than $7 at a fast food place.
Second is a girl I dated from my hometown. She was very pretty and married straight out of high school and had three kids and then got divorced. I took her out to Red Lobster and she was blown away with the place and how much things cost. In her world that meal would have bought 4 or 5 days worth of food for her family. She lived a simple family life and was happy, she appreciated the meal but told me she didn’t want to get use to being so spoiled.
Myself, I enjoy being spoiled.
You were not clear. At all. And apparently that upsets you. One clue as to why your question was not understood is probably the lack of an actual question in the OP. The title had a question but it was obviously not clear as to what you meant by it.
Yep. The query was unclear. To me.
I think I answered correctly for the cheapest meal out. I didn’t explain my circumstances, tho’
I eat many small meals a day. I know most people don’t.
I’m in middle class (maybe uppish) but I’m a cheap eater. I hate wasting money on eating out. There are things that can’t be replicated at home. Sonic corndogs are one. And I have a fetish. So I search the cheapest way to get one.
Today after dialysis we went to the new Dairy Queen. I was not looking forward to this place but I agreed under coercion. The sweets there are a torment.
Me and Ivy had their chili dog combo plate, each. 2 drinks. She got a sundae. $27.00.
Just not worth it. The food was ok. Nothing to write home about.
I would’ve rather have had Taco bell.
(Ivy will never shut up about that sundae😣)
The title question is “Who has the lowest, highest price meal purchased?”. The way to answer that is we all compare our highest-priced meal to find who has the lowest. And the original post has examples of high-priced meals.
For myself, even as a poor grad student in the 1990s, I’d have restaurant bills of more than $30. There’d be conferences where we’d present our papers, and we’d get a per-diem for our costs. The per-diems were generous by our frugal grad-student standard, so we’d eat modestly every day, and then blow the excess on an extravagant meal on the final night. (As long as each of our final sums were less than the total allocated to each of us, it was no trouble.) Bills per person of $50 or more were not uncommon.
When working for a small company and entertaining people from another small company, it was not unusual to pay for expensive meals or receive expensive meals as gifts. It was easy to reach several hundred per person if any alcohol was involved. Large corporations and government customers make this less common.
Lately, we’ll take family or friends out to expensive places to eat as a thank-you for favors received. Sometimes it’s hard to reciprocate the favors, and there’s a limit to how many sentimental gifts can be given. Cash or gift cards are too tacky. But most people enjoy a nice meal with people they like. We don’t go overboard on expense, but here in L.A. any upscale place will be over $50 per person.
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of somebody going to the Cheesecake Factory because the wait was shorter.
I think this is a big part of the issue. Seeing the title alone, I really didn’t understand what the OP’s question actually was, and I suspect that many people (not just in this thread) respond to what they see in the title, without necessarily spending time reading the actual first post, which often better defines the topic.
The OP then spends four paragraphs trying to dance around and add context to his question, which could likely be better, and more clearly, phrased as something like: “Are you someone who has never paid a lot (such as more than $30) for a meal? If you are someone like that, why don’t you choose to pay more for a meal?”
The question was difficult to understand, particularly given that people are often terse in titles so “lowest, highest” could easily be interpreted as “lowest or the highest” or something like that.
It is a difficult question to phrase pithily. How about, “Who holds the record for the least spent on the priciest meal they ever bought?”
Personally I think that’s a lot easier to understand. However, it is also much longer - 79 characters v. 49.
I will pay good money for good food, but there are limits. For a hundred dollars every bite should be perfect, and it should be a special occasion. Canadians are more about value.
Lowest price? I worked in a Canadian town which had a Chinese lunch buffet for four bucks. I wouldn’t eat there. But a dollar can buy very decent Mexican street food, worth much more somehow. Best ever was a homemade spicy habanero grilled cochinita.
I see that, CairoCarol. And your phrasing and the one above would have been better.
I guess I was trying to be too conversational in my OP, rather than simply asking a bald question - especially since I found it hard to phrase, and was concerned that a simple statement would be readily misunderstood.
But are you suggesting people answered based on the title alone, without reading to the 3d post?
And if the question was so unclear, how is it that SOME people were able to understand it?
Feel free to suggest I am upset. You are wrong. Perhaps mildly disappointed, but that is about it. Instead, I’m curious about how people perceive threads. Do they simply read the title, and skip to the end to Reply? Do they simply read the OP? Do they read all of the replies (at least until it reaches a certain length.
I will grant people who say my OP could have been misconstrued. But are you saying that reading posts 1-3 you were still confused and didn’t understand that
[quote=“Dinsdale, post:3, topic:987255”]
I was asking for other people who have NEVER paid as much as $30 for a meal in their life.
[/quote]?
I ask because I spend a lot (too much) time on these boards. If people do not read beyond the title, or the first few posts, that knowledge will be useful in guiding my efforts and expectations.
I suspect my parents – both in their late 70s – have never paid $30/head for a meal.
When we were growing up – even in a food town like New Orleans – going out to eat, anywhere, was considered the province of the wealthy. We were a large family and the economics just didn’t make sense. Sometimes my parents would bring home take-out food from somewhere – but we rarely dined out as a family.
My mom did used to go to a neighborhood Chinese restaurant with her friends maybe twice a month in the 1970s & 80s. She was only paying for herself and was not much of a drinker, so I’m sure she was typically under $10 for the evening.
My Dad considers going out to eat – anywhere – a tremendous waste of money. That said, he’d acquiesce to the occasional Mother’s Day outing and I think two other dining-out occasions.
Is that truck in New York still there allegedly selling Peking Duck pancakes with scallions at a buck apiece? How is that even possible?
I actually wasn’t suggesting much of anything, I just took it as a mildly entertaining exercise to see if I could reword your question in a manner that was less subject to confusion. But since you mention it … c’mon, you are an old-timer here! Surely you can acknowledge that many people will respond to an OP without first reading the entire thread. I myself do that from time to time, though I try not to (and if I do read the thread AFTER posting, and see that I’ve repeated something already said, I own up to it).
There will always be statements and concepts that some people interpret correctly while others misunderstand. And some people probably did spend more time reading and parsing than others.
I wasn’t going to suggest that either. Anyway, I’ll take you at your word for how you feel about it.
I was going to say that about my parents, who are around the same age. The last time they came here to visit I took them to a bar that serves surprisingly good food (They were featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives years ago). My dad acted shocked when the bill was a little over $100 for four people. But really that’s just ~$25 per person, really not that much especially considering three of us ordered beers. But to them “going out to eat” usually means going to a diner or family restaurant and getting a burger and a Coke for like $10-15 each.
But, I do remember one time when we were on vacation in Maui and we went to Mama’s Fish House. We had just happened to drive by it on the way to our vacation rental and didn’t realize it was actually a fine dining establishment – it doesn’t exactly look like it from the road. So we just showed up without a reservation at lunch time, and they managed to squeeze us in. And my dad was definitely surprised when he saw the prices, but then he was like “Well, we are on vacation, I guess we can splurge on one expensive meal.” So I do know of at least one time when they paid that much for a meal. And it was worth it – it was the best seafood I’ve ever had in my life, literally fresh off the boat.
Around here “the new Dairy Queen” will be called that for years, until a newer DQ opens. We have a mall that we refer to as “the new mall”. It opened July 14, 2005.
Same!
The OP was not particularly clear and could easily be misinterpreted on a fast read, especially since the second paragraph discusses pricey meals, and the most common version of this question is about the most expensive meal one has ever eaten. To be fair, your actual question is not an easy one to phrase in just a few words, but the thread title sure ain’t it – to be perfectly honest, I found it incoherent.
I’m certainly suggesting that, at least in part because I’ve seen exactly this behavior happen on the board regularly (and because some of the responses in your thread suggest it, too).
It seems to be common that many people will see the title of a thread which seems to be asking for personal anecdotes, open it, maybe read the first post, and then share what they want to share, often based on nothing more than their reading of the title alone.
So, yes, if a poster took the time to read your first post, and then post 3 (which is, as you note, a better statement of what you were really hoping to see in your thread), then, yes, they’d be giving you the right sort of answer. IME, an awful lot of us don’t spend that much time reading a thread on which they just want to make a post.
Thanks CairoCarol and kenobi_65.
I guess I’ve been ignorant and naive. No - this isn’t me being butthurt. I seriously think that despite my long time here, I’ve misunderstood something. I suppose my mistaken approach has contributed to many prior instances in which I was dissatisfied with the course an OP of mine took.
I have often run afoul of the understandings as to the different expectations in the different forums. Other than the clear “joke” threads, I thought the default was that we generally respected each other as reasonably intelligent folk who were interested in communicating somewhat meaningfully. Something different than the superficial unfocussed crap that makes up so much of texting/on-line communication.
I think I incorrectly assumed our shared goals implied more than a quick skim of a thread title before responding. And when folk failed to make sufficient attempt to comprehend, I would have expected them to acknowledge as much, rather than to double down on criticisms of imperfect phrasing.
As a general rule, I’m not terribly interested in threads that are little more than drive by non sequiturs.
But thanks again. I’ll attempt to adapt my expectations.
I’m a little confused. You acknowledge that most people have occasionally spent a lot on a meal. Did you want all those people to just stay out of your thread?