Ever since we've had him, our child loves salad. Try to give him french fries and he turns up his nose but stick a bowl of lettuce, tomato and cucumber in front of him and he digs right in. Now, if I adopted his eating habits, I'd be a lot better off. But, try getting a salad substituted for fries on a child's meal in most restaurants and you have to tack on an average of $2.00 to the meal.
OK, so we have a national epidemic of overweight kids who don't eat properly. So, when a parent tries to do the right thing and order a healthy alternative to fat-laden fries, we have to pay MORE? I'm not wanting the super-duper deluxe salad with all the trimmings. I simply request some lettuce and tomato. You can even hold the dressing in our case--he'll eat it plain. How much can that cost?? Not $2.00 by golly. I wonder what they'd do if I pulled a $0.99 head of lettuce out of my purse and asked for a sharp knife. I realize I'm lucky that Daniel prefers veggies to fried things...but, it's expensive enough eating out much less having to pay more to do it the healthy way.
The other night at an Outback (in Florida) I ordered Daniel the ribs and asked if he could get a small salad instead of the fries. "No," replied the server. "Oh, OK. Um, so how much would it be to get him a small salad? Just some lettuce and tomato?" I asked. She told me it would be $2.49 on top of the price of the meal and they could not take the fries off. I talked to another server and she arranged to have a salad brought to him "on the house" which was great but I had to make a "stink" to get the child some lettuce. Pretty sad.
And, you guessed it, when his plate came out it was loaded down with greasy french fries which he did not eat. So, the fries went to waste and that expense could have been spared just by dropping a few lettuce leaves and a piece of tomato on a plate and saving the french fries for another customer.
I'll get off my soapbox now. But it is very frustrating.
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