Have you ever had one of those nights when you feel jinxed or the moon and planets are not aligned? Recently my husband and I had one of those.

I was sick with a virus that was going around the office. My friend and co-worker Amber named it the “Flu-Monia”

Since I was feeling bad, we decided to splurge and go out to dinner so I would not have to cook super and clean up the kitchen. Yay - a night off!

We headed to a local chain restaurant that shall remain nameless because none of the events that occurred could have been prevented by them.

This establishment had been advertising a prime rib dinner special, plus it was ‘Free Pie Wednesday.”

And, I had received a 20 percent off coupon in the mail. Winner, winner prime rib dinner!

With all the savings dinner out would not hurt our pocket book, so it seemed.

We pull into the parking lot, taste buds excited over the wonderful prime rib dinner to come with a baked potato dripping with butter.

I should have known something was going to happen. We get out of the car and my husband says, “Hey look it’s a full moon.” Hmm…

We walk in the restaurant and are quickly seated. Our nice waitress arrives and takes our drink order then leaves while we look over the menu.

There it is in beautiful glossy color, the prime rib special.

“Oh no,” my husband said, “the prime rib special is only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

Sure enough at the bottom in small print it says Friday-Sunday only.

The waitress comes back and verifies the bad news but points out that they have a lovely rib eye steak for only $16.99 that would be just as good, the most expensive meal on the menu by the way.

She leaves us for a few minutes to decide on our entree.

I pick the grilled chicken over linguini and my husband chooses the grilled tilapia over rice.

Oh well, at least it is “Free Pie Wednesday,” and I have a 20 percent off coupon.

I pull the coupon out and turn it over. On the back it says not valid on “Free Pie Wednesday” or “Prime Rib Special (Fri-Sun).” Seriously?!

They bring our dinner which turned out to be very good.

At least it’s “Free Pie Wednesday’ and they have cherry pie, my favorite. I saw on the sign in front of the restaurant and it was front and center on the pie menu.

We finish dinner, now time for our reward, free pie.

“I would like cherry pie please,” I tell the waitress.

She looks at me with sad eyes and gives a weak smile, “We are sold out cherry pie tonight.”

Linda Underwood is our classified ad representative and can be reached at lunderwood@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.