EDINA, Minn. — 37-year-old man Steve Bellows opted for chicken fingers for his seventh consecutive dinner outing despite having poured over the entire 23-page menu at Cheesecake Factory early yesterday evening, stunned diners have reported.
“I mean it’s hard to not feel like you’re going to choose the wrong thing when you’re given 200 options, right? I want to take my time and tour the menu for an hour, then head straight to the kid’s menu and point to the ol’ standby chicken fingers, baby,” said Steve Bellows. “Sometimes I’ll try to order pasta, but there’s even three fucking pages of just that! What do I look like, a stuck-up foodie? Just give me something to dunk into honey mustard and give me the check.”
While Bellows is comfortable with his consistency, his spouse wishes he would expand his palette, if only for appearances sake.
“I swear any time he’s presented with more than two options he completely freezes. He practically has an entire textbook of food and goes for a kid’s after-school snack, again. The waiter might as well bring out a placemat and crayons. He could at least order a chicken sandwich and look like a dignified adult,” said Melissa Bellows. “I should’ve known him wanting chicken tenders at our wedding reception was a red flag. Last time we came here, I thought we had a breakthrough when he almost got the chicken parm until he saw it was 2000 calories, and he switched at the last minute.”
Experts have observed Bellow’s behavior is part of a larger trend of individuals rejecting the idea of choice overload.
“Freedom of choice is both a gift and a curse, and the same can be said for the menus at places like Cheesecake Factory or Applebee’s. In other words, if you build a kitchen with enough microwaves, the sky’s the limit,” said Fred Sinclair of Restaurant Hospitality Magazine. “But that comes at a price because most diners will more than likely fall back on the meals they’ve been eating their entire lives than risk $30 on a subpar steak. What’s never let anyone down however is a piping hot plate of breaded chicken.”
“It’s like the old adage says: give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll throw fish sticks in the oven instead,” he added.
Later in the evening, Melissa Bellows was seen with her head in her hands after her husband spent 20 minutes analyzing the cheesecake menu to only order a bowl of vanilla ice cream.