Window Shopper

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We had an occasion to visit a Wendy’s in Batesville, Arkansas. Now, if you have read any other posts of mine recently, you will take note that I did also eat at a Pizza Hut buffet one day a while back. I do believe that Batesville is not a good town to go out to eat. Yet, I used to enjoy some of the places that they have there. Still, this was one visit I choose not to have again.

When we walked into the store, we were already disappointed because the reason we were there in the first place was for the frescatta (I KNOW I did not spell that right but no idea anymore what they were called) sandwiches. Those were really good. Having been to the corporate site, I see that it was one of their decisions to remove those from the menu. Right there is a good reason not to go back to Wendy’s at all. And now we have a reason not to go to the one in Batesville as well.

Because I could not have the original order, I substituted a couple of wraps. They had chicken in them. I figured I could not go wrong there. Yeah well. I ordered that and fries. My husband ordered two chicken sandwiches and fries. His sandwiches were very small, looked like they came off the kid’s menu. My wraps had grilled chicken in them…dry as dust. It also had honey mustard on it. I do not like honey mustard. Problem…they did not say that on the menu. I guess you would have to ask that but how do you ask what you don’t know you have to ask?? Hmmm?

The chicken was almost hard. The fries were half cooked. I’m thinking here that the visit is now a total bust. Of course, the manager was more or less helpful and wanted to replace the wraps. I was okay with that. From what I can gather, at least one of the wraps simply had the mustard wiped out of it and replaced by ranch dressing. One of them had more moist chicken but it was a tiny piece. I suspect they are getting three to four, possibly five wraps from one small piece of chicken for those wraps. How cheap can a place get?

Personally, I have no problem whatsoever, not going back there ever again. I used to love Wendy’s when Dave Thomas owned it. Since he died, it has gone the way so many other places go when the vision dies with the creator, to seed.

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Trust me on this one. That is not a subject I am comfortable with at any time. I have no idea what looks good fashion-wise. I suppose that makes me a Neanderthal in some people’s eyes. I really don’t care. When I go to the store to shop, I wear something comfortable. After all, I’m spending our money, not their’s. You know who they are, right? The fashion snobs. Frankly, I have seen the snobs and they don’t look so hot especially in spandex. ACK!!! These people think that they look GOOD in that stuff. Sigh. Some day, there will be a law against people wearing spandex who look horrible in it, don’t you think? Only someone who is reed thin can get away with that. Or maybe someone with incredible muscles. But NOT some chunky monkey person who thinks they look hot when they look…….ack! Nasty. Listen, I’m fat so I can say that!

Frankly, I cannot see that these folks have any style at all. Now, you want style? Find someone who is wearing renaissance clothing. Okay, sometimes it could be a bit much but look at that style, that flair. No, I am NOT talking about “The Nanny” from Flushing. But I am talking about some really great clothing. Of course, you do have to want to walk around in things that are usually only seen in plays and movies but that’s the fun part. Uh, I still wouldn’t wear that to the grocery store though. Sweats. That’s where it’s at for the store. My Mom would not approve. She believed, like most folks when I was growing up, that you dress up to go to the store and out to eat. You were not casual about it at all. She still can’t stand to have on her “grubs” to go to the store or doctor. She is definitely more comfortable in her dressier clothes. I say she should do what she wants.

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My husband and I have prepared ourselves for the possibility that at some point we would not have as much money as we did for income. That time has come, well actually did come last year. But we have been shopping frugally for some time now. That’s got to be a plus for any family. We find the best buys in the best places. And yes, sometimes it costs a bit of gas. But if you weigh out what the gas cost is compared to the savings, well, it is good sometimes.

Our habit is to, once a month, go over 50 miles to a store that has a whole lot of savings. The problem now is…is it costing us more to go there. See, we buy for my Mom too and then deliver the groceries to her house which is 18 miles farther than our house. Do we get the savings we need? I don’t know anymore. It was when we started all this a few years ago but I am not certain of that now. Still, that store has things we cannot get around here. That’s a plus too but is it worth it?

That would be the question you have to ask yourself now that the gas prices are sky high and not likely to drop…ever. Oh, it will drop a bit sometime this fall, I’m sure. Possibly it will drop some for this winter. However, if history repeats itself, and it usually does, then we can expect higher and higher gas prices. So, how do we protect ourselves? We still buy smart. We still buy with the savings in mind. The list of supplies may change. It might have to. Ours did some years ago because we felt that we could not afford to buy the name brand items anymore. It was a good thing we did that. It was so worth it to learn how to shop cheaply then because it serves us well now. So, get ready to shop but shop efficiently and intelligently. Grab the energy pills and get out there because you’re going to need them by the time you get finished.

1) Stick to the store or generic brands as much as possible. Most of them are made by the same companies or “look alike” companies that want the brand to appear to come from a national brand. It sells better that way.

2) Despite the gas prices, go to more than one store and get the loss leaders if that’s part of your list. If not, leave it alone. Don’t buy just because it’s cheap. Are you ever going to use it? Don’t convince yourself that you will use it if you never have before. Buying on the spot just because you see something interesting is how the grocery bill goes up, up, up. Ask me how I know.

3) Now more than ever, do NOT go to the store hungry. It’s death to the bill at the register.

4) Make that list. Stick to it as much as you possibly can. Use the newspaper ads. Part of the list should include the sale items you need for the week or month. Don’t go to the store and “shop” without it.

5) When you go out, make your trip count. Go to all the places you want to shop in the one day. We go to two to three stores and usually the pharmacy. If we have a doctor’s appointment, it’s a shopping day too. Plan ahead. Don’t just go driving if you want your gas tank to stay nice and filled.

6) Do the best you can to find discount stores. They do not always have the best prices but they sometimes have some fantastic deals. Of course, that depends on today’s prices what anyone could now call a “fantastic deal”. But they are still out there.

The most important thing to remember is to plan and save. When you take several trips to buy small items, you use the precious gas that costs so much money right now. Combining it all into one trip saves a lot of gas dollars. Isn’t it about time to save that money and gas for other things?

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Recently, we were able to partake of the lunch buffet at two different Pizza Huts. I just thought I would comparison shop. Having done so, I am now able to give a review of both places. And I thought I would share that so that you, the reader, may be able to see what is going on at your own Pizza Hut or other buffet offerings wherever you live and eat. The two Pizza Huts in question are the store in Batesville, Arkansas and the one in Ash Flat, Arkansas. And I want to be perfectly clear here, we are not in any way affiliated with either store nor are we affiliated with Pizza Hut on a national level. We are simply consumers who saw things that we are reporting to you.

1) The Ash Flat Pizza Hut-Fairly new, built a few years ago. The buffet is in a good place in the room and accessible from all areas of the restaurant. We noticed that the buffet table was clean, neat, appealing. The person in charge of the getting the pizzas out so that there are no spots without pizza evidently knows their job. With few exceptions, the table was quite full for the lunch time. They had a full house during that time.

At frequent times, the person watching the table would come out, look the table over, combine pizzas onto one pan and leave room for more. The “more” was quick in coming. The person came out with the new one. The pasta dishes were treated exactly the same. When the pasta was getting less than half a pan, it was replaced with the person putting it into the next pan. Rarely were there any spots open on the table. They used one place in the six place table for dessert pizza. The rest were for the regular pizzas. Nothing stayed on the table for long whether because the customers took it or the person who watched the table took it because it had been there too long.

The salad looked appetizing and fresh. The person that looked at the table cleaned it when necessary. When we sat down at the table, the waitress asked us what to drink…water….which she brought right away along with silverware wrapped in a napkin very neatly. The waitress was very attentive. If we had had any problems, she would have addressed them. We asked for a special order on the buffet. They had no problem. It was there very quickly. And last but certainly not least, our waitress was very attentive to our needs. And very nice.

Result: We were quite pleased with all parts of the visit, at the way we were treated, the buffet table both in appearance and the way it was not allowed to be empty at any time. Very nice. It was just great to go there and eat from that buffet. You knew that they would not serve anything that was very old because it was not allowed to be old. Cost: $5.99. We give it a 5 out of 5 pizza rating!!

2) The Batesville Pizza Hut-When we went into the store, the buffet table was somewhat messy with food on the counter part of the table. We were asked before we sat down what we wanted to drink. As we sat down, she brought the drinks. We were not served any silverware or napkins. The silverware, we noticed, was sticking out of a container that are usually used for the salad part of the table. They were not wrapped but were out there for any food to drop into the container. We got our own napkins from the buffet table. We did ask for fresh silverware which the waitress, who was surprised at the request, brought out and it was wrapped in a napkin in haphazard fashion. We think she wrapped it as she brought it out.

The pizza side of the buffet table was messy. When we got there, there was a dessert pizza that ended up being there the whole hour we sat in the place. There were six places for pizza as before. They used four for regular pizzas and two for dessert pizzas. The second dessert spot was for cinnamon rolls. They appeared to be more interested in the cinnamon rolls getting there than the other things although that space stayed empty for the better part of almost twenty minutes before cinnamon rolls were put there even though there was little to no pizza on the table at the time. It seems to me that since they had a full house that more pizzas, not dessert, would be in order. The salad side of the table was not only messy but the salad appeared to have been there awhile. I wondered about that since we arrived at 11:15 am. It looked limp and not very appealing. There were almost empty containers on that side as well.

The house was full. Most of the time, the four pizza pans were nearly empty. It was obvious that the pizza maker could not keep up with the crowd. The usual was that there might be between a half and a whole pizza on the table if you combined the pans. Most of the pizzas contained sausage. There was little variety. No one seemed to be watching the table because at no time did anyone come out to inspect it. Once in a while someone would bring a single pizza out. Never did they have two new ones at once. Never did anyone think to clean the table. It was messy when we got there. It was messy when we left.

We asked for a special order. It came out fairly quickly and was very hot. Nice. We liked that. They ran out of pizza plates, the oval kind. People had to use the salad plates for pizza since they have a clean plate rule which I, by the way, agree with. The pasta pans were nearly empty when we got there. At no time during the hour we sat there did they change those out. In fact, by a half hour, they were empty and stayed that way. When we left, a person was putting a new pan in…after we mentioned that fact at the register, I might add.

When asked if everything was all right, I said no. They wanted to know what was wrong. I told them a couple of things. My husband mentioned a thing or two. Nothing had been done prior to us mentioning those things. Right before we left, what I heard from one of the people behind the register was “we do the best we can.” Hmmm.

Result: Unsatisfactory visit. Too many things wrong. No attention to details at all. No cleaning of the table. No interest in keeping it stocked well. Not very good service at all. The only bright thing was that the buffet was cheaper than the Ash Flat Pizza Hut. This cost $5.49. This would be about a 2 out of 5 pizza rating. And the only reason it gets that is the cost, the special order and the waitress who was attentive.

These visits were totally different. It shows what happens when people are happy where they work, are attentive to their customers and care that the customer gets what they order or want. Pizza Hut execs, you should take note of the vast difference in the way the stores are handled. Amazingly, the store that worked the best is in a rural area but is still quite busy at lunch time. They were not pressed to get it right. They had it going on. The other store which is in a larger town with a college, could not handle the crowd in a much smaller dining area. And the tables appear to be similar in size. I should mention this one thing too. If I am not mistaken, the rural PH is larger than the other one. That means that they are far superior in all respects to the other PH that’s in a city.

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The fact is, I start out a whole lot of my posts here with “when I was a kid”, so much so that I do not want to do that here, this time. So, when my niece was younger….HA!…she wanted to win. It did not matter what, she just wanted to win. The problem was that her sisters were all older than she and they DIDN’T want her to win…anything. Quite often, there’d be crying because she didn’t get to win a game. It got to the point that her sisters didn’t want to play games with her anymore.

That was a tough time for her. Well, she was desperate to win something. After all, all of her sisters could do it with various competitions and games. Striving to get the best score on all sorts of things, she could win and some things. Over the years, of course, she got a lot better at these things and she does win now, sometimes. It’s as it should be. But back when she was about 8, I think, she got a Rubis, excuse me, Rubics Cube for Christmas. We told her how to work the cube and what it took to get the colors all in the right places. One day, she brought out her Cube and gave it to me. She told me proudly that she got it all right. I took one look and knew just what she had done. She had peeled off all the colors and replaced them so that she got all the colors matching where they should be. Trouble was that those stickers no longer were sticking. *grin*

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Ever heard that phrase before? I have…all my life. Sometimes it was me that had someone saying that. The truth is that I am a klutz. That would be why when I go shopping, I do not pick up many items, especially the really breakable items. Yes, on occasion, I am having to pay for something that I would need to fix if I wanted to keep it myself. Not so much of that anymore but before, when I was a teenager….ACK!

Most teenage girls are so graceful you would think they were taught by the models of the world to stand, sit and walk into a room. Me? When I was a teen, I galloped into the room. If I could have neighed, most people wouldn’t have been able to tell. You know, that it wasn’t a horse. You had to make me say it, right?

These days, the klutz part is a bit dampened down, I think. I only drop the keys when we’re headed out the door, in the car and when I want to put them away. Not nearly as bad as it used to be. Still, the klutz part of me wants to be just like everyone else. Now wait a minute. I have to think about that one. I can tell you for a fact that I happen to be a super klutz. Oh yeah? Don’t believe me? Have you ever seen a Cobra golf? Uh huh. That bad. In one day, I probably wiped out several items treasured by people. I simply will not go into an antique store anymore…that is, if I don’t get banned.

Am I really that bad? I would like to think that this post is really just a spoof but I can’t tell you that. Oops, there goes my keys again. They sure are slippery today. Sigh.

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A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I had won a prize associated with the new A&E remake of The Andromeda Strain. What I didn’t really get into was talking about the movie itself. Now, I have seen the original move by the same name. I always liked it very much. Good Sci-Fi stuff. Also liked the book by Michael Crichton. The fact is that it’s a great story.

If you like it as much as I do, you will want to see the newest version of The Andromeda Strain, a made-for-tv movie that aired on A&E a couple of weeks ago. The DVD is now out or will be soon and it is awesome! It begins with a scoop from out in space that has fallen into the earth’s atmosphere, landing near a small town. Two young people out on a date pick it up and take it to the local Mr. Fixit. Unfortunately for all of the town, they open it exposing themselves to something that is killing everyone.

The worst part is that the rate of death is almost 100%. There may be survivors so a team goes into the town and sees what the Andromeda Strain is really capable of. Scary stuff. It is packed up and brought back to an underground facility where there are numerous checks and balances to keep anything contained….but it doesn’t…stay contained, that is.

This is a must see for all who love Michael Crichton books or just love the first movie. The purists will probably want to see the first movie and compare but I believe that they each stand on their own merits. I really liked the remake very much. And with a cast of these folks, how could it miss. The cast consists of Benjamin Bratt (Law and Order), Eric McCormack (Will and Grace), Christa Miller (Scrubs and Drew Carey), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost), Viola Davis (Law and Order), Ricky Schroeder (Strong Medicine and NYPD Blue), Andre Braugher (Mist and Rise of the Silver Surfer…I first saw him in Homicide: Life on the Streets). This awesome cast gives a wonderful performance and you believe that this could happen some day. Good movie.

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I have had a few suggestions concerning my hunt for my laptop. Most of them are wonderful suggestions if I only had a bundle of money and could spend it as I like. The reality is that I do not have that. So, I have to find other ways of getting what I want. And of course, every possible thing is getting in the way of that. But in that, I am persevering. Every time I see that word, I remember the home room motto that was on the top of the door. We looked at it every morning coming to school. My home room’s motto was PALS (Perseverance Always Leads to Success). I cannot tell you why that has stuck with me but it has long after I have forgotten so much more important things like…..what was my friend’s dress color at the prom. Yeah, it was that bad.

So, I am persevering. I have looked for all sorts of ways to have the laptop I need but the big prize is very illusive right now. Cannot imagine why. I thought about getting one of those that you finance online but they are so costly. First, you pick out the one you want. Then second, you start adding the little things like with a desktop computer….a keyboard and mouse. Now, I really thought that those things would actually come with it but they don’t. Added cost. Nice. I don’t know. I thought about computer rentals. I called. The local rental shop does not rent out laptop computers. That leaves me pretty much in the same place I was a while back..without a laptop and needing one for less than most of them cost. And I am stubbornly not wanting a used or refurbished one. Am I being a snob? I hope not.

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My husband has a blog that deals with cooking, recipes and lots of things to do with the kitchen. And he has a list of the other cooking blogs that he likes. Through all of it, one of the things I like so much are the chocolate recipes. And that is a problem in itself. I love chocolate! Love the recipes for brownies and other recipes that use chocolate. I also love raspberry recipes. They’re so great.

I do think there is a problem though. With our family seeing these recipes and trying them out, we could have real sugar issues some time. But also, we do see that there are other things that we cannot ignore. I mean, you know what it was like to be a teenager, right? I remember. Most of us had to battle the big zit problem one way or another. And with all those chocolate recipes, our niece will be looking for acne solutions sooner rather than later if this keeps up. So, we have decided that he can write the recipes but we can’t always try the recipes like we would love to do. And that can be the best solution for us right now. But I do miss my chocolate. Sigh.

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A while back, I entered a contest that included some pretty terrific prizes. You can see the blog post about that contest by clicking on the link here. It was about the new Andromeda Strain movie that broadcast on A&E network last week, I think. And I won the contest when I wrote this blog post about it! The prizes are awesome! I received the old version of the movie and then the new one too!! We watched the new movie last night. It was fantastic! It was somewhat like the other one but there were definite differences with extended content. I will not be giving it away for those who do not like spoilers.

I wanted to thank Simply Stating the Obvious for hosting the contest and for letting me enter it. This is a really nice blog to visit anyway but now there will be more contests in the future since this one was successful!! YEAH! I love contests. So, a great big thank you! Keep the contests coming.

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