A Very Merry Unbirthday To You!

Last night was one of those rare occasions when the planets align perfectly and all three of us are home at the same time. Remarkable, in this day and age, that all three Gressels are in the same room at the exact same moment. See? Miracles do happen.

To celebrate, I took The Lovely Mrs. G. and Miss Katie out to dinner at Applebees. Applebees is an okay place – certainly no Olive Garden, by God – but overall their food is okay, the service is adequate, and it’s one of the few places my semi-vegetarian daughter will willingly eat. (I offered to take her to “House of Cows and Pigs: Where Your Dinner Screams For Mercy”, but she told me I wasn’t funny.)

Anyway, Applebees has one thing going for it that you won’t find at many other restaurants (including that beloved Olive Place…): they give out free dessert on your birthday. Even if it’s really not your birthday, they’ll still dole out a birthday brownie. (I’ve never seen them check I.D., but maybe if you come in every day for a month claiming it’s your birthday, they’ll start to get suspicious.)

Your free Applebees dessert comes with an added bonus, though – 5 or 6 members of the wait staff are forced to tromp out to your table clapping, then they must sing the trademark Applebees Birthday Song to you.

I’m paraphrasing a bit (because I'm too lazy/proud to go online and look it up), but it goes something like this:

Here we are at Applebees (here we are at Applebees)
Your favorite grill and bar (your favorite grill and bar)
Have a happy birthday (have a happy birthday)
For today you are a star (for today you are a star)

One, two, three…
Ha-ppy Birthday,
Hap-hap-happy birthday.
Ha-ppy Birthday
From your Applebees crew! Whoo!

It’s a humiliating little ditty, one that must be sung over and over and over again by the poor bastards who apparently lost a bet and/or who’ve pissed off the manager. It’s like a little circle of restaurant Hell; being forced to clap and sing the Applebees Birthday Song for all eternity to ungrateful customers too cheap to buy their own dessert.

Last night at Applebees we had the joy of hearing the birthday song at least four times, including once for a pack of teenage girls (one in a tiara) who probably spent two hours at a prime table during the dinner rush, split one Diet Pepsi, and then asked for a birthday dessert and four spoons. Yeah, I’m sure their waiter was thrilled to waste a four-top on them, then have to disgrace himself by singing the Applebees Birthday Song for the millionth time in exchange for a 50 cent tip. It's like being a monkey in a fez, only without the organ grinder.

Anyway, the birthday crowd at Applebees usually comes in four distinctive groups:

1 – Those who are faking their birthday (you know who you are) for free dessert.
2 – Those who absolutely HATE being sung to in public.
3 – Those who absolutely LOVE being sung to in public.
4 – Those who’ll outwardly say that they HATE it, but deep down inside LOVE the spotlight, because other than from their cats and the occasional telemarketer, they rarely receive any attention at all.

Miss Katie is definitely in the #3 category. She loves the Applebees Birthday Song to no end, and will gladly sing and clap along at any time. For a kid who doesn’t eat meat, she really is a ham. We’ve actually taken her to Applebees several years for the whole ordeal, and she enjoys it more and more every time.

The Lovely Mrs. G. is a solid Birthday Song Hater, though. She’s made me promise that I’ll never, ever do it to her, and so far I’ve kept my word. Even last summer when we both turned 40 and it was so tempting to do, I resisted. Partially out of the love for my wife, and partially because I know that my birthday is just two days after hers, which gives her 48 full hours to plot some really nasty form of revenge.

As for me, an old friend did pull the Birthday Song bit on me once, back when I was 27 or 28. But I got the last laugh – from my seat in the dining room I could see straight into the kitchen, and I could see the staff gathering together around a dessert with a candle in it. So the moment they started walking out of the kitchen, I excused myself and went to the restroom. There they were, chasing me through the restaurant, clapping and trying to pin me down long enough to sing their damn song. Heh, heh.

In the end, I did have to take one for the team and "enjoy" my 30 seconds of painful embarrassment. And I hope to God that they didn’t all take turns spitting on my brownie as payment for making them come back a second time.

So in honor of the nice people at Applebees who are forced to sing to ingrates on their birthday, I thought I’d write them a new jingle:

Here we are at Applebees (here we are at Applebees)
Have another beer! (have another beer!)
It’ll help you forget (it’ll help you forget)
You just added another year! (you just added another year!)

One, two, three…
Ha-ppy Birthday,
Hap-hap-happy birthday.
Ha-ppy Birthday
Now go and F You!

I wouldn’t hold my breath for hearing this rendition the next time you visit the place, but hey – you just never know. Just remember where you heard it from first, in case anyone asks or wants to pay a royalty.

And have a Hap-Hap-Happy Birthday. But please -- buy your own cake.