Matthew Osborne
You never know what kids will get interested in out of nowhere. That’s one thing I have learned in almost 20 years of parenting.
Of course, they sometimes lose interest just as quickly, or over an interval of time which is impossible to predict. But living in the moment of their excitement is well worth it as a parent.
While watching a ballgame one night last week, a commercial came on for a chain restaurant that shall remain nameless that does not exist in our community.
The restaurant offered all you can eat boneless wings, and for some reason, Ollie’s eyes got wide.
“Wow, I want those wings, can we go get them right now?” he asked, obviously having room left in his stomach after dinner.
“No, it’s 9 p.m. and we don’t have one of those here, it’s like 35 miles away,” I replied.
“What about tomorrow?” he said. “I want boneless wings.”
“We’ll see about this weekend, how is that?”
The talk ended there, but on the way to school the next day, all he could talk about was boneless wings and what flavors he wanted and when were we going to eat them, Dad?
I had to laugh at his sudden obsession with wings, especially after so many humorous instances in my life have revolved around wing-eating in some way or another. (We had a wing eating contest at the rehearsal dinner for our wedding, for starters. But that’s a tale for another time.)
Later that day, I got a message from his teacher letting me know what a terrific week in school he had and adding, “Hope you fellows have fun eating wings this weekend! He is excited!”
Man, that boy is all about wings right now.
So it was decided. The boy had a good first week of school, so if it’s wings he wants, it is wings he will get.
I did this full well knowing that he could not eat multiple plates of wings. We are talking about a little kid, here. But I don’t know if it was Celine Dion or Rick Astley who once said, the heart wants what it wants even if it fills your stomach too fast.
(Fact check, no one said that.)
When we arrived, I also ordered all you can eat wings so that he and I could “legally” share, not that there are police for such things, but I was trying to play it straight. I figured he might need the assistance of a man of larger carriage like myself.
The bummer of the day came in not only an interminable wait for our order, but a complete lack of anything entertaining on the multiple televisions in the restaurant. With the Braves playing at night and us stuck in mid-August doldrums, all they had on was golf lessons in Savannah and ACC football games from last year.
Please, football season, get here soon.
Anyway, our boredom turned to frustration when we were finally presented with our wings, only to find out that they were now out of boneless wings.
So, to quote something they once told my uncle at a place offering a similar chicken deal in the 80s, this was all we could eat.
It just felt like a real letdown from the excitement my boy was feeling when he gazed upon the romantic TV ad with glazed sauces and delicious bites of boneless glory and dared to dream.
Instead, we got a dose of reality.
But we ate the wings we had and were grateful for those, wondering if this was potentially the worst version of this famous chain restaurant we had ever been to.
We weren’t really wondering, I was just being nice.
The point is that, after taking my oldest back to college on Friday, time with my boys is precious. It will go faster than I realize.
Faster than a speeding bullet.
Faster even than a restaurant can run out of wings and torpedo its own promotion.
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.