I live in suburbia and a few years ago, a T.G.I. Friday’s opened up near where I live. I never imagined that T.G.I. Friday’s could draw a crowd like the one they drew. I remember hearing that there were wait times that lasted something like an hour and a half most nights. Honestly, I thought the waiters and waitresses must’ve been “servicing” the customers (wink wink, nudge nudge) after each meal, the wait was so long. It’s a place that serves watered-down drinks, mozzarella sticks, and Bruschetta Chicken, what was the big fascination? I was perplexed.
Fast forward to about 6 months ago when a chain Mexican restaurant called On The Border opened up nearby, which is actually right down the road from that same T.G.I. Friday’s. From when it opened until about two weeks ago, when I ate there, the wait time was, again, something like an hour and a half. Just like T.G.I. Friday’s, On The Border is a chain restaurant, there’s nothing special about it. Plop one in suburbia though, and the place draws a crowd like it’s Nobu or Spago. Why? Well, the answer’s obvious: suburbanites are bored out of their collective minds.
In suburbia, people quickly run out of things to do. There’s only so many trips to the post office you can make, only so many times you can go grocery shopping, you shouldn’t hit Starbucks more than a couple of times a day otherwise you’ll have to take out a second mortgage and/or you’ll turn into a hummingbird, and if you go to the mall more than 5 times in one week, you’ll be ready to stab those pushcart-operating people in the eyes (don’t they realize that, no, we don’t want to try their stupid hand cream?). After a while, it seems that a quiet night in your quiet neighborhood with your quiet family in front of your less-than-quiet TV seems like the way to go. As far as ruts go, that’s not the worst rut to be in. But it’s still a rut. One day though, out of the clear blue sky, a new restaurant pops up nearby and–gasp!–there’s another option! A new restaurant doesn’t seem like the most exciting thing in the world (lemme put this in solar system terms: if a new restaurant is Earth, the most exciting thing resides on Pluto) but to suburbanites, a new restaurant is like having the Rolling Stones put on an inexpensive concert everyday for an indefinite period of time. And they–the suburbanites, not the Stones–can even bring their kids!
In other words, living in suburbia is a lot like living in a fish tank. From the outside, it looks calm, peaceful, and rather pleasant overall. From the inside, however, it’s the same scenery, the same fish, and there’s only so much to do before you’re forced to hang around the little diver guy with the bubbles issuing from his helmet. That is, until one day somebody plops a big medieval-looking castle–also with bubbles issuing from it–into the water. All of a sudden, it appears as though the fish tank just got a whole lot more exciting. This is actually not the case. Lucky for the fish that they’re too bored to notice.