So. This week, for the second year in a row, I received the Hooters Mother's Day 'Moms eat FREE'' promotion in my email inbox.
For the record, I have no idea how I got on this mailing list. For one thing, husband and I have been vegetarians for the past two years (for health reasons only, don't worry, I still wear deodorant and shave my legs) and while I haven't actually been to a Hooters recently (ever?) I'd be willing to bet we'd be hard pressed to find a veggie burger or tofu wrap on the menu.
Also I have no idea where the nearest Hooters is. And that's OK with me.
Anyway, I could have sworn I unsubscribed from the Hooters emails last year after getting the Mother's Day special delivered to my gmail account. I was nine months pregnant with baby boy #3 and HUGE. Not huge as in "awww, you look like you swallowed a basketball!" but huge as in "So your baby is already 8 pounds with four weeks to go and he's swimming in roughly three gallons of extra amniotic fluid." At that point just looking at a glass of water gave me severe heartburn. Go to a restaurant that specializes in fried food served by waitresses in short shorts and belly shirts? I don't care if it's free, you'd have had to PAY me money to spend my mother's day there.
DELETE.
This year, when I got the email again, I thought, I must be missing something. There must be something special on Mother's Day besides the free meal that makes moms think that this would be a good place to spend THEIR DAY.
Perhaps there's a special soundproof room where the mothers get to eat ALONE. With no one asking them to blow on their french fries, get them more ketchup or clean up their spilled drink. Maybe instead of wings and beer the moms are served chocolate and champagne. Are they worried about what their husbands are doing left unattended with the children and a bunch of buxom young waitresses? Nope. Because they've been told for years that men are unable to multi-task. Go ahead, honey, try checking out Bambi's cleavage while cutting your kid's chicken fingers and keeping the baby from throwing all the silverware on the floor. Yeah, that's what I thought.
So I opened the email. I scanned the promotion looking for the fine print that would tell me why this promotion was so successful last year that they've brought it back again this year. There it is.
"To be elgible mother must be at the restaurant with at least ONE of her offspring."
Wait, what? So now Hooters is telling me that not only am I NOT eating alone, but I can't even make this a date-with-husband thing where we ditch the kids with our parents (Happy Mother's Day, SUCKERS!) and have an hour to ourselves while enjoying a little eye candy and maybe getting some advice on where to get the best spray tan from Bambi. Now I have to bring the OFFSPRING?
But only ONE offspring. There's no way in HELL I'm bringing all three of my little monsters to Hooters with me on Mother's Day. This means that now I have to choose which child I'd most like to spend an hour of my day saying "Those are FORKS not swords/musical instruments/hair accessories" to.
This is the f-ing Sophie's Choice of Mother's Day promotions*.
No thanks. In my opinion the only way this could ever work is if Hooters partnered up with La Leche League and did some sort of pro-breastfeeding thing like "They ate for free...now it's YOUR TURN!" Those breastfeeding Nazis** can guilt women into just about anything.
Curious, I started looking around online to see what other crazy Mother's Day promotions I could find. My favorites included "Give your mom the gift of GUNS with an NRA gift card!" Even if I supported the NRA I don't think I could get on board with handing a loaded weapon to someone who probably hasn't had three consecutive hours of sleep in eight years.
There was also a special on "compression apparel" at one of the department stores. "Hey mom, sorry being pregnant with me tore up your abdominal muscles so bad that you will always look roughly four months pregnant. Here's some SPANXS!"
Then there was the "Mom's night out" at some happening night spot that boasted the guest appearance of firefighters and policemen because "all women love a man in uniform." I'm sorry, but if a bunch of firefighters and policemen walked into a bar on my night out I'd probably panic, thinking that one of my kids had burnt the house down.
But my favorite was the one a friend mentioned a couple weeks ago - the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is free on Mother's Day. Now there's a deal, I thought. Send Dad and the kids to the zoo and give Mom the afternoon off. Someone was THINKING. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth I was corrected by the friend. It's only the MOMS that are free on Mother's Day.
Are you kidding me? You are telling me that it's a big deal that I don't have to pay to schlep my kids through the ice cold rain or blistering hot sun (because let's face it, the zoo is always one or the other) to watch a bunch of monkeys throw feces at each other? I can do that in my own backyard and not get talked into spending $20 on a souvenir that's going to break five minutes into the car ride home.
As it happens, this year Mother's Day happens to fall on my oldest kid's 6th birthday. In fact he was born ON MOTHERS DAY - ensuring that that day would forever be associated in my mind with being doubled over in pain begging for stronger drugs. So, while other moms are out there enjoying their free wings, new guns and lap dances by the chief of police, I will be in my kitchen cooking a birthday dinner for my son. Of which he will probably only eat two bites.
But as my husband reminded me the other day, that's OK, because "Every day is Mother's Day."
So, what do YOU want for Mother's Day?
* Oh yes I did just compare a chain chicken wing restaurant's mother's day deal to a fictional woman forced to choose which of her children would live and which would die at the hands of the Nazi's. It's OK, my husband's grandparents were survivors, which gives me the street cred so I can say those things.
** Again, street cred. Also, I have nothing but respect for women who breastfeed and women who help women breastfeed. But I have in my day hung up on an overzealous LC for suggesting that my red-faced, screaming, underweight baby that would not UNLATCH himself from my nipple was in fact getting plenty to eat and under no circumstances should I think otherwise.
For the record, I have no idea how I got on this mailing list. For one thing, husband and I have been vegetarians for the past two years (for health reasons only, don't worry, I still wear deodorant and shave my legs) and while I haven't actually been to a Hooters recently (ever?) I'd be willing to bet we'd be hard pressed to find a veggie burger or tofu wrap on the menu.
Also I have no idea where the nearest Hooters is. And that's OK with me.
Anyway, I could have sworn I unsubscribed from the Hooters emails last year after getting the Mother's Day special delivered to my gmail account. I was nine months pregnant with baby boy #3 and HUGE. Not huge as in "awww, you look like you swallowed a basketball!" but huge as in "So your baby is already 8 pounds with four weeks to go and he's swimming in roughly three gallons of extra amniotic fluid." At that point just looking at a glass of water gave me severe heartburn. Go to a restaurant that specializes in fried food served by waitresses in short shorts and belly shirts? I don't care if it's free, you'd have had to PAY me money to spend my mother's day there.
DELETE.
This year, when I got the email again, I thought, I must be missing something. There must be something special on Mother's Day besides the free meal that makes moms think that this would be a good place to spend THEIR DAY.
Perhaps there's a special soundproof room where the mothers get to eat ALONE. With no one asking them to blow on their french fries, get them more ketchup or clean up their spilled drink. Maybe instead of wings and beer the moms are served chocolate and champagne. Are they worried about what their husbands are doing left unattended with the children and a bunch of buxom young waitresses? Nope. Because they've been told for years that men are unable to multi-task. Go ahead, honey, try checking out Bambi's cleavage while cutting your kid's chicken fingers and keeping the baby from throwing all the silverware on the floor. Yeah, that's what I thought.
So I opened the email. I scanned the promotion looking for the fine print that would tell me why this promotion was so successful last year that they've brought it back again this year. There it is.
"To be elgible mother must be at the restaurant with at least ONE of her offspring."
Wait, what? So now Hooters is telling me that not only am I NOT eating alone, but I can't even make this a date-with-husband thing where we ditch the kids with our parents (Happy Mother's Day, SUCKERS!) and have an hour to ourselves while enjoying a little eye candy and maybe getting some advice on where to get the best spray tan from Bambi. Now I have to bring the OFFSPRING?
But only ONE offspring. There's no way in HELL I'm bringing all three of my little monsters to Hooters with me on Mother's Day. This means that now I have to choose which child I'd most like to spend an hour of my day saying "Those are FORKS not swords/musical instruments/hair accessories" to.
This is the f-ing Sophie's Choice of Mother's Day promotions*.
No thanks. In my opinion the only way this could ever work is if Hooters partnered up with La Leche League and did some sort of pro-breastfeeding thing like "They ate for free...now it's YOUR TURN!" Those breastfeeding Nazis** can guilt women into just about anything.
Curious, I started looking around online to see what other crazy Mother's Day promotions I could find. My favorites included "Give your mom the gift of GUNS with an NRA gift card!" Even if I supported the NRA I don't think I could get on board with handing a loaded weapon to someone who probably hasn't had three consecutive hours of sleep in eight years.
There was also a special on "compression apparel" at one of the department stores. "Hey mom, sorry being pregnant with me tore up your abdominal muscles so bad that you will always look roughly four months pregnant. Here's some SPANXS!"
Then there was the "Mom's night out" at some happening night spot that boasted the guest appearance of firefighters and policemen because "all women love a man in uniform." I'm sorry, but if a bunch of firefighters and policemen walked into a bar on my night out I'd probably panic, thinking that one of my kids had burnt the house down.
But my favorite was the one a friend mentioned a couple weeks ago - the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is free on Mother's Day. Now there's a deal, I thought. Send Dad and the kids to the zoo and give Mom the afternoon off. Someone was THINKING. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth I was corrected by the friend. It's only the MOMS that are free on Mother's Day.
Are you kidding me? You are telling me that it's a big deal that I don't have to pay to schlep my kids through the ice cold rain or blistering hot sun (because let's face it, the zoo is always one or the other) to watch a bunch of monkeys throw feces at each other? I can do that in my own backyard and not get talked into spending $20 on a souvenir that's going to break five minutes into the car ride home.
As it happens, this year Mother's Day happens to fall on my oldest kid's 6th birthday. In fact he was born ON MOTHERS DAY - ensuring that that day would forever be associated in my mind with being doubled over in pain begging for stronger drugs. So, while other moms are out there enjoying their free wings, new guns and lap dances by the chief of police, I will be in my kitchen cooking a birthday dinner for my son. Of which he will probably only eat two bites.
But as my husband reminded me the other day, that's OK, because "Every day is Mother's Day."
So, what do YOU want for Mother's Day?
* Oh yes I did just compare a chain chicken wing restaurant's mother's day deal to a fictional woman forced to choose which of her children would live and which would die at the hands of the Nazi's. It's OK, my husband's grandparents were survivors, which gives me the street cred so I can say those things.
** Again, street cred. Also, I have nothing but respect for women who breastfeed and women who help women breastfeed. But I have in my day hung up on an overzealous LC for suggesting that my red-faced, screaming, underweight baby that would not UNLATCH himself from my nipple was in fact getting plenty to eat and under no circumstances should I think otherwise.
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