I may have previously mentioned the affinity that me and my kids have for Skyline Chili. I know why I like it: Mixing spicy Habenero cheese with chocolate-enfused chili and putting it on a plate of 10-cent-quality spaghetti noodles that were cooked 5 hours before you got to the restaurant: it’s just magic. But what isn’t entirely clear is why the kids like it.
(if you don’t know about Skyline Chili; well, the simple description above does not do it justice; just go here and come back in a minute).
And they like it very much. My daughter insisted on making us go there for her birthday two years ago: including my wife’s parents and my parents, who came in from out of town to be subjected to the Skyline experience.
The reason it makes little sense that my kids like this place is that none of the kids actually eat the chili. My daughter eats the hot dogs (which are mini-hot dogs), my son eats oyster crackers and multiple bowls of shredded cheese and my other daughter east the overly sticky noodles and maybe some cheese. Yet they claim to love it.
I’m sure part of it is them just feeding off me and my enthusiasm, but I suspect a large chunk of it is the familiarity – really, the ritual of the experience.
And there is a ritual for us. In fact, for my family, Skyline Chili is the land where jokes never get old, where things have to go perfectly. And if we skip a step, there is hell to pay from the kids.
For each Skyline experience must proceed as follows:
I’m Lost: First, I am required to pretend like I don’t know where I’m going as we drive there. Normally I’m supposed to say things like “So we’re going to the fish restaurant, right?”
Race: Once the kids direct me in the mini-mall complex, and once we are safety under the mini-mall overhang, we are required to race to the restaurant. Not just running, either. I am required to mark-off appropriate head starts for each of the kids and participate as well. Once in the place, we always sit in a booth.
Worm: Once the drinks come, when you take the straw wrapper (straw sleeve?) off the straw, you crinkle it all up before you take it off the straw. Then you use the straw to get a few drops of coke/sprite/water into your straw and you drop it on the crinkled-up straw wrapper and it starts to expand and wriggle like a worm.
I’m sure part of it is them just feeding off me and my enthusiasm, but I suspect a large chunk of it is the familiarity – really, the ritual of the experience.
And there is a ritual for us. In fact, for my family, Skyline Chili is the land where jokes never get old, where things have to go perfectly. And if we skip a step, there is hell to pay from the kids.
For each Skyline experience must proceed as follows:
I’m Lost: First, I am required to pretend like I don’t know where I’m going as we drive there. Normally I’m supposed to say things like “So we’re going to the fish restaurant, right?”
Race: Once the kids direct me in the mini-mall complex, and once we are safety under the mini-mall overhang, we are required to race to the restaurant. Not just running, either. I am required to mark-off appropriate head starts for each of the kids and participate as well. Once in the place, we always sit in a booth.
Worm: Once the drinks come, when you take the straw wrapper (straw sleeve?) off the straw, you crinkle it all up before you take it off the straw. Then you use the straw to get a few drops of coke/sprite/water into your straw and you drop it on the crinkled-up straw wrapper and it starts to expand and wriggle like a worm.
Here’s a video.
Cracker Soccer: Cracker soccer is the bastard cousin of the study hall paper football game When you sit down at skyline chili they give you a bowl of oyster crackers with – I’m not making this up – a fork. I’m not sure I get that one.
Anyway, we sit at a booth and the kids take their straws and I take mine and we put an oyster cracker in the middle and try to blow it off the table on the other person’s side.
This is more fun than it sounds like.
Pass Daddy the Ketchup: This is probably the kids’ favorite and the most ritualized Skyline Chili practice. We get in the both and I tell the kids that I LOVE to eat oyster crackers and ketchup and I ask them to pass me the ketchup. They pass me the hot sauce, watch me put some on an oyster cracker and eat it and then watch me over-act like a Wil E Coyote cartoon, complaining about how hot it is. Then they race to give me water and ask me, as if I might be permanently injured, whether I’m OK.
Nothing in this world is better to them than this. I’m not sure I totally get it, but I absolutely go along.
Competitive Eating: Once the food gets here, the kids start talking about how it is not enough like they are Joey Chestnut or Kobayashi or something. My son gets two bowls of cheese and demands two more. My daughter’s mini-hot dog eating record is, I think, five, but often a far greater record is alleged. Most of the time in life, when it comes to food, they are nibblers. This is the only time in the world that they think eating tons of stuff is cool.
Superballs and Such: A kids’ meal at Skyline Chili ends with a choice of a sucker or oreos (they used to provide both -- when my kids were forced to choose starting about 18 months ago, there was a minor revolt and I was required to let them choose suckers and give them cookies at home). After that, they demand quarters for the superball machine. For some reason, any ball with a design is considered good. A pool ball superball is considered bad, unless it is your current age. Luckily, pool ball superballs can normally be traded to the two year old for her ball, so as long as we only get one pool ball out of three, we’re good). At this point we must have nearly 100 superballs bouncing around our house.
And that’s about it. That’s the Skyline Chili experience every single freakin’ time we go there.
(and I kind of love it all too, so maybe it’s not just the kids that like the ritual)
