Arby's Report: The Ol' Bait & Switch...

I enjoy the food at Arby's but to be honest, they are simply overpriced for what you get. So, because I'm a cheapskate, I rarely even consider stopping there. I can count on one hand the number of times I have eaten at Arby's in the last five years, and with the exception of today, the other times have been because I was with a group of people who all agreed on eating there and I have no problem with eating some place that I wouldn't otherwise choose, if it makes other people happy.

Okay, so this afternoon, my wife presents me with some sort of flier from the newspaper or the mail or something that has this big Arby's special where for $5.95, you get to choose five items from the list of meal items. So you could get five sandwiches, and it would be $5.95. Or you could select two orders of curley fries, two sandwiches and a drink, and it would $5.95. Or you could get three shakes, and two pies, and you'd be one fat bastard. But you get the point.

In our case, we had this bright idea of getting one Arby's melt, one ham melt, one order of curly fries to share and two shakes. All for $5.95.So we walk in and the place is fairly quiet, very clean, and the guy at the register was very quick to come take our order. I didn't even notice what my wife was talking about when she asked the guy why the flier we received in the mail had a different price than what they had on the counter. He politely informed her that it was a typo and she said, "Oh, good!"

Then when he rang up the total, it came out to $7.51 or something like that, and my wife looked at me and asked how the tax could be over a dollar fifty for a $6.00 meal.

By now, I just wanted to eat and I rattled off something about the guy saying it was a typo or whatever, but now my wife was concerned that other people would be more demanding than we are and want to pay the $5.95 instead of the $6.95. Though I frankly couldn't have cared less about the dollar rip-off, I soon wolfed down my extra tiny roast beef sammich and then it occurred to me that I never eat at Arby's precisely because they are too expensive. And now these son's of bitches trick me into their store with the ol' bait and switch?

My wife started to hand me the keys thinking I was going to run out to the truck and grab the flier and demand satisfaction. I could see she was excited, thinking about what lawyer-like words of smoothness I would use on the friendly guy at the counter, how I was going to come down firm yet respectful, in a matter of fact but non-accusatory manner; to the point that he would probably give us free roast beef or ham and cheese (our choice of course) for a year. Hell, they were bound to throw in a case of Horsey Sauce for good measure!

But I finished my shake, took the tray full of food wrappers and napkins to the trash can and bid the folks behind the counter a good evening. The fact that I was standing around the lobby taking pictures of everything pretty much had the manager peeking from behind the food bins trying to figure out if he was about to find himself in the middle of a food inspection or something.

That was worth a buck.