Yeah, Skyline! Boo, Skyline!

First I have to thank Skyline Chili in my hometown. Every time the Colts or Bengals win over the weekend, cheese coneys are 99 cents on Tuesday. So I have been loading up the last few weeks...and it has been wonderful.

But then Skyline made me mad today. Usually, when I go to Skyline I will order coneys for me and my boys. My little girl is only 2 and doesn't know the difference between a Skyline coney and a Walmart hot dog. So we just save a buck and make a hot dog for her at home.

Today we were out of hot dogs so I was going to buy her a coney without chili at Skyline. So I ordered my 7 cheese coneys and asked for the last one to have cheese only, no chili. The gal behind the counter asked "so you want a hot dog with cheese?" I said yes. But I noticed she started pushing a whole lot of buttons like she was removing a coney from my order and putting in a separate order. I was right.

I asked, just to be sure, if the price on that last one was still 99 cents. She said "no." I looked at her in disbelief. I asked "are you serious?" She said yes. So I said nevermind, just give me the regular coney and we'll scrape off the chili.

Unbelievable. So, if I save you the time of putting chili on the hot dog and save you the cost of the chili, you still have to charge me more money? Would it really be that big of a deal to just not put chili on the darn thing?

To make matters worse, while I was inside ordering, this dude pulls up in the drive-thru in a pick up truck with a dog by his side. The person working the drive-thru asked the guy if he'd like a hot dog for the dog. So she grabbed a hot dog, minus bun and toppings, and handed it to the guy, free of charge, to give to his passenger canine.

So it's okay to give away a free hot dog to a DOG but a HUMAN customer has to pay full price for a hot dog with cheese instead of 99 cents for a coney minus the chili? Does that make any sense at all?

I don't get this. Similarly I don't understand why Arby's offers Arby's Melts 5 for $5 but you have to pay regular price for the regular roast beef sandwiches. You can't just order 5 Arby's Melts without the cheese? Now admittedly I have never tried this, but it seems to me that if an Arby's Melt is on sale, a regular roast beef sandwich should be on sale too.

I don't have a business degree, but as a guy who understands money pretty well, I just don't understand this.

-wj