Over the Hill We Go

Last night I was in the mood for dinner out with my hubby. He was going to be home after work, but unfortunately that wasn't until late, and this little town rolls up its sidewalks and draws down its shades early. We used to limp along on one 24 hour cafe that changed hands a zillion times but it finally gave up and closed last autumn.

BUT - we have a casino up on the reservation. They have a cafe. Always open. We'd never been. We're not gamblin' folks. We decided to give it a try.

It was fun. Like somehow having left town without the trouble of leaving town. A bit of a smokey scent even in the nonsmoking room, but not too bad. Service was fine. Food was .... acceptable - cheap coffee shop quality - you can't really complain when you want dinner in the middle of the night.

When the waiter brought our bill I asked him if they offered a discount with the Grizz Card. Grizz Card? For my readers, a Grizz Card is this wonderful discount card sold for $10 by the high school football teams. Participating businesses offer discounts that you can use over and over again for the entire year. It's a real gem. For example, at one of our favorite coffee shops, you get free drinks with every meal. Another coffee shop offers one free drink with each visit (although we ended up with two cards because William was selling them this year and got one free for every twenty he sold) and sometimes, depending on the waitress, they'll honor both of our cards and give us all our drinks off. Our fave Mexican restaurant gives you one meal at 50% off with the purchase of another entree. Every time we go in to any of these restaurants, we get these discounts. For $10 - or in our case, for FREE, we have literally saved hundreds of dollars so far and the cards don't expire again until the end of this August. There are also discounts at places like tire shops, the uniform shop, shoe store, and so on. (These cards are very popular in communities all over, at least all over California - check in your community at the local high school if you'd save with one of these!)

So, back to the waiter. Grizz Card? He looked puzzled.

"So, obviously not" I said. "A Grizz card - the little purple and gold card with discounts for locals." I hold up my hands to frame the credit card size of a Grizz Card.

"Oh!" He understands. "But no, we don't. But it's okay, I already gave you folks a discount."

"You did? Why?"

The waiter looked uncomfortable. "Well, I don't want to be rude or anything."

Silence. We're confused now.

"I mean, you two look really great and all."

Huh?

"You're seniors, right?"

We just cracked up laughing. And then, without planning it, we pointed at each other and said in unison "Well, she/he is!"

More laughter. Then Jeff conceded the point. He was. I mean, one of us had to take the blame to get the discount. No sense embarrassing the guy any further. And I look waaaay too HOT for it to be me.

Hey! I can hear you. STOP LAUGHING!