11.01.2007

Praise the Lord and Pass the Tin Foil

Yesterday was the annual Tour de Tin Foil. Yes, I understand it was some sort of pagan holiday as well, but not being pagan (and not being willing to give away a day), we went to Chipotle.

Every year, Chipotle offers a free burrito to anyone wearing tin foil. Fortunately, you are not limited to wearing tin foil - in other words, you can wear it over your clothes, which seems important to me. I shudder to consider wearing nothing but tin foil and getting one of those static electricity shocks you get from rubbing your feet on the carpet.

Kelsey fashioned some great masquerade glasses out of foil. I made my annual full metal mohawk. The kids just wrapped themselves up. Once inside the restaurant, we discovered it nearly full of IHOP staffers, interns, students, families, and sundry other prayer lurkers.

As we threw down our usual, we talked about our first Chipotle visit over five years ago. A new one had opened near our (then) home in northern Cincinnati. Kels and I wandered in during our date night, took a glance at the menu and decided "....Chinese". As we walked out, we were chased down by a 20 something girl with a manager's name tag.

She smiled and asked "Hey, where are you going?"

We looked at one another. "Uh, we're not sure...but we just decided to eat somewhere else."

"Will you eat here if I pay for it?"

Kels and I looked at one another for a moment. We're picky, but we're cheap too. "Ok."

That was undoubtably the best $10 that manager ever invested, because I think we've averaged about 35 burritos each of the five years since.

Think about that. Figure in our burritos plus Jackson's, plus Grayson's, plus Zion's.

{(175 burritos x 2) + (125 burritos) + (75 burittos x 2)]$5 = $3125.

That's over $3k for $10 of advertising, minus the dozen or so freebies we have collected over the years on Halloween or with the gift card we got when that creepy employee swiped our debit card number and made a bunch of strange toll calls on it.

I'm still trying to figure the equation to total the cost of the chips and guacamole.

6 comments:

Ronni Hall said...

chicken, fajita, black beans, light rice, half hot, half mild, sourcream, no guac (allergic to avacodos... i think that alone is a comic joke or something), with a orange mango please. :)

Yeah, its mandatory around here now.

YUM.

Anonymous said...

This year was my first foil adventure at Chipotle... I saw a ton of IHOPpers as well. My roommate and I actually hit two restaurants, one for us, and one for a friend.

I think the record has got to be a guy on my team who got a grand total of 10 burritos...

Kelsey Bohlender said...

I love it...."one for a friend".....by next year you won't be afraid to admit that you're stocking your freezer for those last 3 1/2 years.

Anonymous said...

You & Kelsey must feel better if you're eating at Chipotle. As Martha would say, "That's a good thing!"

Tracie said...

Next year, when the Loux's aren't sick, we'll make a caravan of it!

The Weaver Family said...

At what point do you feel bad saying "yes my 2 month old baby will have the carnitas with extra guac." Israel & I started this tradition on Halloween three years ago. This time he actually ate what he earned from his foil hat.