A Memoir on Surprise Bags, Parking-Lot Reveals, and Five-Dollar Victories
Setting: July 2026 — Somewhere between bargain hunting and winning dinner
A Facebook friend posted about an app called Too Good To Go.
The idea was simple: restaurants and stores could sell food they had left at the end of the day instead of throwing it away. You paid a few dollars for a “surprise bag,” showed up during the pickup window, and found out what you got.
This immediately appealed to me. Mostly because I like surprises. So I downloaded the app and started checking what was available near us.
The answer was: not much. Some places had pickup times late at night, right before closing. Others gave you a thirty-minute window that somehow managed to be the exact thirty minutes I would never be available. Then one evening, I spotted a deal from the Pizza Hut in the next town over. The surprise bag was $4.99, and pickup started at six with a generously large pickup window.
Finally.
I had no idea what we would get. A few leftover slices? Some breadsticks? A pizza nobody had picked up? Whatever. For five bucks, Holden and I were willing to gamble. We got in the car and headed over.
When we arrived, I told them we were there for a Too Good To Go order.
“It’s not ready yet.”
This confused me. Wasn’t the entire point that this was food they already had? Apparently, our leftovers were still being prepared.
So Holden and I sat down at one of the tables to wait.
And waited.
He got increasingly impatient and started entertaining himself with the cheap table decorations while several other people walked in and announced that they, too, were there for Too Good To Go. Suddenly, this was less of a bargain pickup and more of a secret pizza club.
Eventually, they called my name.
We grabbed the boxes, headed straight for the car, and immediately opened them because obviously we were not driving all the way home without knowing what we had won.
A freshly made pepperoni pizza and a fresh order of breadsticks (Caleb’s favorite).
For $4.99.
Holden and I stared at our haul like we had just pulled off something illegal. We drove home ridiculously pleased with ourselves, carrying an entire dinner that had cost less than most fast-food meals.
The next week, we did it again.
Same exact haul.
For $4.99.
Frankly, it felt irresponsible not to.
This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.
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