Half-Priced Dinners

The running joke here in DirtmanLand is that I love to kid SissIggy that she is older than me (in reality, I am exactly six months older). I also kid her when she gets mail from the Social Security Administration and AARP.

A third running gag is she will soon qualify for senior citizen discounts - especially at restaurants - and that I will buy her the things she really wants and need, when I can use the savings from said discounts.

It all came back to bite me one day last week when Sis and I were dining with my parents at the local IHOP on senior citizen night. IHOP, by the way, has good food at regular prices but on those special Mondays, seniors over age 55 get a 50 percent savings and a cup of ice cream too.

The bill came and I forwarded cash to my mother for Sis' and my part of the ticket. She went to pay and commented afterwards that she wasn't charged the right amount. The total bill was around $49 and she had been charged $28 and change.

As mom is always apt to do, she marched right up to the manager and told him he needed to take more of her money. As there was a steady stream of other customers wanting and needing to pay so they could get home in time to watch Big Joe's Polka (on RFDTV).

The manager explained the clerk had rung up the ticket wrong, giving four senior discounts instead of two. So now it seems Sis will get a new pair of slippers 3-1/2 years sooner than I thought.

VT 20, Cincinnatti 7

To the chagrin of the Heirs I can say with confidence, "We did it".

They, of course, will say that I didn't play a single down but who cares. Virginia Tech finally won a BCS Bowl for the first time in four tries and the team now has won 10 or more games, five years in a row. Only two other BCS teams can say that: Texas and USC, which puts our program in some pretty good company.

The Bearcats entered the game as favorites and that played into the Hokies working-man mentality.

Congrats to coach Beamer and Company and especially to coach Stinespring who may have finally gotten the monkey off his back from alumni unhappy about our offense this season. A big kudo to coach Foster for another outstanding defensive effort.

With any kind of luck, Tech might finish in the top 15 this season and we (there I go again) should be a bonified pre-season Top-10 team next August.

Congrats again, Hokies.

Happy New Year

Hats off to Google for another nice piece of artwork celebrating the first holiday of 2009. And while I post this on the coldest (19 degrees Fahrenheit), windiest (WNW 24 mph) and first night of the new year, I wish it to be safe and prosperous for everyone who frequents this blog.