i know it was you friedo

It is truly a sad day.

This is pretty much what it looked like.

Let me take you back a few steps. Just over five years ago, I started dating Wendy. One day very early in our relationship, we ran into an old friend of hers that would go on to become a close friend of mine, Jazz. Jazz told us that their whole crew had taken to having dinner at TGI Friday's every Friday night around 10:30, and we were welcome any time. They would be there, Jazz asserted, "Every Friday night for the rest of your rockstar life."

Shortly thereafter, we made our first trip into the suburban wilderness for Friday night dinner. Then we went again, and again. Then it became second nature. Then it just became nature.

Over the years, this habit has met with everything from befuddlement to outright scorn. People have a certain aversion to the idea that someone would become such an ardent regular of, horror of horrors, a chain restaurant.

The simple fact is, it's familiar and it's nice. The main attraction was always spending a set time with a large group of those people closest to you. We could have been anywhere, and I certainly don't know what went into the decision that initially set us up there. But frankly, the environment perfectly suited it. The feeling of simple comfort was really heightened by being in a place you could have been, and were, taken with your parents a million times in childhood. There is something mysterious in the recesses of my psyche that just loves such things.

There were any number of signs that Friday's was dipping. Wendy sensed it the earliest, when they discontinued her regular order, the grilled vegetable sandwich, maybe three years ago. The indicators kept rolling in, but we were in large part blind to them.

Over the past year, as our regular servers all completely disappeared, things went sharply downhill. Aside from service so poor as to verge on the comical, the big moment came for me when they discontinued the chicken finger BLT. With the exception of maybe five instances, I had this sandwich every trip to Friday's for over four years.

Last night, the now-usual happened: slow service, silly mixups, my sandwich showed up with no fries. Those
gathered, a much smaller cross-section of the usual gang, decided that the final straw had been drawn. We all agreed to Vox about it, though only myself and Stu have stepped up to the plate.

The thing is, wherever we end up, we'll still all be hanging out together every week, which is really the point. I just wish we had left on a high note, so as not to sour our memories.

Stu was saying that we should make some grand, conclusive gesture. I suggested that next week, we get everyone to meet up in the Friday's parking lot, then go somewhere else.