> Chili's does rule - I like some of their salads, but their names escape me since there isn't a Chili's very close to me. I like a somewhat similar restaurant as well, T.G.I. Friday's. The food is good, but I swear I shall NEVER go there on my birthday. They tie balloons to your wrists and your hair. Once I saw a bald guy there, and they tied the balloons to his ears since there was no hair. O_o

Leen and I have made a pact that if we eat out anywhere on one of our birthdays, we do NOT let anybody know. We revere this pact with almost greater importance than our wedding vows. If one of us were to break it, it would give the other person permission to commit spousicide (along with the will to do so) without consequence. This pact was made just for the purpose of avoiding the nauseatingly cheery throngs of happy clapping singing waiting people. Definitely if anybody tried to tie balloons to any part of my body, they would find themselves transfixed through the throat by a Huge Knife.

The exception is Newick's, a very small, very local chain around the seacoast area of New Hampshire. The server will wish you a "Happy Birthday" in an even, well-modulated tone, and you get ten bucks off the total bill. This is the entirety of the restaurant's involvement in the celebration. Newick's gets a lot of business from us, not just on our birthdays but at other times, too, because they understand that eating out is not supposed to be humiliating.

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