Am I just cheap?

Yesterday after church, our family went to lunch; something we typically do Sunday's after church. It's the one day we almost never cook at home.

So after we helped pack up our portable church we jumped in our cars and ran out to find a scrumptious lunch.

Stopped at a Peruvian restaurant. My husband jumped out of the car to get our name on a waiting list while the rest of us parked the cars. He grabbed a menu on his way out the door to tell us the wait would be 1/2 an hour. No problem. After taking a look at the prices.......whoaaaaa.....at least $15 a plate, we decided that for 7 people, it was more than we wanted to spend. We had a good laugh about this restaurant in a strip mall charging $15 a plate, and at least $9 for appetizers.

Next Peruvian restaurant. Parked, walked up, took a look at the menu on the window (Thanks for the preview people) and laughed again. Another strip mall restaurant $14.99 a plate. Thanks for the penny savings, and your honesty.

You know this driving from restaurant to restaurant is burning precious gas so, at the risk of sounding like we're just plain cheap, I'll tell you the truth. We left the cars and walked to the end of the strip mall and saved at least $38 by walking into that "if it's not all over your face" restaurant, Carl's Jr.
Here we were drooling with hunger, thinking it would be a nice treat to take the family to a restaurant, as opposed to a fast food place yet in the end, fast food won out. Really, we're not cheap but I wanna know, are these people nuts? There's absolutely nothing fancy about either of these places yet they're charging a pretty penny for their ugly little strip mall restaurant and obviously some body's paying. There were lines waiting to get in.

From everything I hear, this country is struggling right now. Unemployment is still on the rise, people are losing their homes, auto makers are trying to hold it together, we're holding on to our teachers by the skin of our teeth and people are paying $15 a plate for a strip mall restaurant. Hmmmmmmm

What are we (the Bozas) doing wrong? We're hard working honest people (well, at least most of the time). We certainly don't drive fancy cars or live in a luxurious home. We rarely visit a mall, and clothes....one look will tell you, we don't buy expensive clothing, in fact, we rarely buy clothes. So how do they do it? The Joneses, I mean. I wanna know. I really wanna know.