Lifestyles of the poor and trashy

This past Wednesday, in typical "when it rains it pours" fashion, my furnace decided I did not need heat in my house any longer and it absolutely was not going to come on. Of course, I only discovered this at 10 o'clock that night. Hmmm, what to do? I called the service number on the paperwork. What do you know, the service box is full and they will get back to me the next business day. Fine, I didn't want to pay extra for an after-hours house call anyhow.
At this point, since M. was at her dad's house, I did what any sensible single woman would do... I gathered the dogs and had them sleep on my bed. Morning arrives and it's a blazing 55 inside. I think it was colder than that but the thermostat only shows down to 55. When the furnace company finally calls me back, they have good news in that I will be next in line but that their repairman is in Ridgefield and won't get to me until late afternoon. But they'll call when they are on the way. OK, so at this point it is so freakin' cold I can't even type which eliminates all possibilities of working from home (or even goofing off at home) and if I need to be close enough to home that I can get here when they do call, I need to be closer than work. Dad's house, here I come.
Spending the afternoon with the parents is pretty OK. It reminds you why you moved out in the first place. As I wait ever so patiently for the furnace repairman to call, I endure Passions, and Days of Our Lives, and some HGTV all while trying to hijack a wireless network so I can check emails. Big event in Dad & K.'s life is they are going out to dinner at "the buffet" that night. I'm not familiar with "the buffet" so I ask for details. Oh, they are going to HomeTown Buffet and I'm welcome to join them.
The furnace finally gets fixed and I pick up M. from school. I explain that we're going out to dinner with G'ma & G'pa and her cousin at a restaurant called HomeTown Buffet. Now kids and old people love buffet style restaurants (and it's cheap too since it's only $.90 per year old the kids are) so she's loving this, and the fact you can walk right in and eat without all the waiting that takes place at a normal restaurant. The only problem with this for me, is the concept of "all you can eat" brings out the people who take that as a challenge. Like the couple who had to move their chairs further apart (and I mean a couple of feet further apart) in order for them both to sit on the same side of the table.
After a lovely dinner at "the buffet", (which I will admit was decent food but there's no possible way for me to eat enough that it's worthwhile for me), we couldn't possibly let the night end there. As if it were destiny (but more likely a stroke of marketing genious), we walked next door to the dollar store.