Best Chain Restaurants To Tell Your Son Connor You’re Not His Biological Father
Somehow, 15 years have gone by and you still haven’t told your son Connor that you’re not his biological father. Whoopsy daisy! These things happen. Luckily, your suburban town is rife with chain restaurants where you can have a serious, sit-down talk about his true lineage over fun appetizers and market-tested entrees. But which should you pick?
Glory Days
At this beloved family restaurant/sports bar, you can order some wings, some fries, and watch the sports games. Make jokes, slap backs, and cheer and moan at the goings on the screen like any normal, American, father-son pair. Then, during a commercial break, polish off your third Miller Lite, and tell him a story. Before you married his mom, she had been with someone else. The guy turned out to be a real jerk and took off a few months after he was born. Several months later, you met him and his mom and instantly fell in love with both of them. A year and a half later, you and Connor’s mom got married. It was a small ceremony, but somewhere there are pictures somewhere of Connor in a little suit holding your rings. There never seemed quite a right moment to tell him, plus you never wanted him to think of himself as anything less than your true son. You’re sorry you waited so long to tell him, but hopefully he can understand why. Now, how’s about another round of wings? Glory Days has 11 different types of sauces!
Macaroni Grill
Maybe you want to make this night more of an occasion. Break out your best ties and JC Penney’s slacks and tell Connor he can order as many different types of raviolis as he wants at this Italian-themed restaurant that specializes in grilled macaronis. Who knew raviolis could have so many different kinds of fillings? Hey, do you know who was a quarter Italian on his mom’s side? His biological dad! Oh yeah, did you not mention he has one of those? Explain to him that he’s like a ravioli with a different kind of filling — not a filling that came from you, but a filling that everyone else still loves. At Macaroni Grill, they give you crayons so you can draw on their paper tablecloths, so you can illustrate the family trees as well as perhaps a timeline of events. After that, let him get two desserts. Tiramisu and a giant cannoli! You’ve both earned it!
Ruby Tuesday
Everyone knows Ruby Tuesday has the best salad bar and kids love salad bars. He will be so excited that he will want to Snapchat his friends the entire time his awesome veggie combos. Compliment him on how he mixes up his romaines and icebergs. Challenge him to try all the dressings. This will buy you about an hour to down some Millers and work up the nerve to tell him the truth. When explaining to him that he is not a product of your semen, you can use the salad bar as an analogy. So many different things can come together to make a wonderful salad, just like many different things can make up a wonderful family. Anyway, does he want to give that new learner’s permit a spin? You’re in no condition to drive home!
Olive Garden
You can use this restaurant’s famous “When You’re Here, You’re Family” slogan as a segue into a discussion about what family means. Do you have to be blood-related to be family? The Olive Garden clearly thinks you just have to show up in order to qualify! Explain that your standards have always been somewhere between the two. Family shouldn’t be entirely determined by genetics, but by bonds that are shared, ones perhaps a little stronger than a communal love of never-ending breadsticks. And you know what else is neverending? Your love for him, even though he’s not related to you by blood. Anyway, thanks to the Olive Garden’s special, you can stress-eat carbs all night while he bombards you questions you should have answered long ago.
Honestly, you should really focus more on what you’re going to say than where you say it. But hopefully this has been a helpful diversion!
Next week: best parks to tell him that his dog who “ran away” six years ago actually died!
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