When I was a kid, I remember vividly the excitement that our family experienced when our parents told us that we were going to “go out” for supper. It was a big event! My siblings and I would all get excited about what the restaurant possibilities were.

Survey says…

We would start to throw out the usual restaurants in town (we lived in a small town, so we quickly ran out of options) and then our parents would allow us to place our votes. Inevitably, we found that for the most part, we ended up going to the same restaurant, every time.

As we got older, we realized our excitement around voting for what restaurant to go to, was really just a game or gimmick. Our parents had already decided (prior to us voting) where we would be going.

In our family’s case – the restaurant was called Acres.

Acres was this greasy spoon that my dad loved on a busy two lane highway, well removed from the edge of town. It was decked out with the old plastic table cloths and the wait staff was lousy…but the burgers were unbelievable (at least that was how I remembered it).

I remember most of us ordering the “King Burger” because it included fries and coleslaw and the burger had extra pickles. We would always throw lots of vinegar on our fries—mostly because it was sitting there on the table and it seemed like we needed to use it.

Exercising my veto power

Funny thing today…my kids accuse me of letting them vote on a restaurant and in the end, exercising my veto power and deciding on what I ,of course, know to be the right and correct place for our family to go out for dinner.

For our family—make no mistake—the best place to go is Mission Springs!

Best burgers, best pizza, best service and perhaps the best of all…it’s a bit removed from Abbotsford—so I get to just be with my family. Of course, it is not by accident that what is on the menu pleases my palette to the max and everyone in the family knows it. And our kids are coming of the age where they know that the vote is really not a vote…it’s a game or gimmick, as we somehow find ourselves driving into the Mission Springs parking lot, yet again.

Perhaps parenting is not an exercise in democracy. Someday our kids will fully understand…