Friday, August 7, 2009

how old do you have to be to get the senior discount anyway?!?

so today . . . i spent a little time getting in touch with my inner little old lady.

it started while we were waiting in line at hometown buffet to pay. i said i wondered how much longer it would be before we would qualify for the senior discount. i am really looking forward to that! did you know that burger king will give you a free coffee or small drink if you are 55 or older? i'm not quite there yet, but i am already thinking that i may have my 55th birthday dinner at burger king--i'm sure rollie will be glad to hear that!

i remember my mom telling me about the first time she realized she could get a free senior drink. she asked for her drink, and they made her show i.d.! they didn't believe she was 55! since i don't drink, i've never been carded, so i am kind of looking forward to that experience. and honestly, if they don't ask me for my i.d. i am going to be really disappointed. and maybe just a little bit depressed!

anyway, we went to lunch at hometown buffet. i say lunch, but we didn't go until about 3:00. we ate breakfast a little late today, so we just weren't hungry earlier. and we thought if we went in the middle of the afternoon, it wouldn't be so busy. but we had to go before 4:00 or we wouldn't technically be eating lunch--we would be eating dinner. see, already i was thinking like someone living on a fixed income . . .

i love hometown, because of their salad bar. first of all, it starts with iceberg lettuce, which has no nutritional value whatsoever, but it is crispy and i can stab it with my fork! i don't know where all those other healthy lettuces hide their vitamins, because they are so flat that they cannot be stabbed--so how are you supposed to eat them?!? the salad bar also has shredded cheese, chopped egg, shredded carrots, and peas, but most importantly, garbonzo beans--just stop right there and say that out loud--garbonzo beans . . . how can you not love something that is so much fun to say! and then i top it all off with ranch dressing and sunflower seeds. yum!

we also get unlimited sodas, which are infinitely better now that i have found that they have lemon wedges at the taco bar. i don't usually eat the taco stuff, but the lemon is good in my cola. although, i have learned to get the lemon before i get my drink, because if i carry my soda over to the taco bar i have found that it tends to get spilled. i don't know why. i just know that my drink should go straight from the dispenser to my table . . .

and then i am good. if i have my drink and my salad, i am happy!

however, in the interest of full disclosure, i should probably mention that my salad is HUGE, and i start with very little lettuce. so you know i am eating lots of egg, cheese, peas, carrots, garbonzo beans (see how i worked that in a second time . . . ) and a big pile of sunflower seeds.

so, we were sitting in our booth. rollie was pretty much done eating and was just waiting for me to finish, because i had decided that in order to get our money's worth, i needed to eat some meat. and i sat there with my meat, listening to the orchestra music playing over the sound system. i looked around me and realized we were probably the youngest ones in the room--and we are 50! but the little old people were so cute! slow, but cute.

and i thought, i wonder if this is what it will be like when we are old. you know, we won't have jobs, so we won't have to get up early (although rollie probably will anyway.) and we can get up and putter around the house in the morning, and maybe read a book or do an errand. then if we go eat in the middle of the afternoon, we won't have to eat both lunch and dinner, plus we can just pay the lunch price and avoid the crowds. then we can go home and take a nap and read or putter a little bit more, and then go to bed. this sounds like heaven to me!

as i am sharing this with my husband, who is part of this picture, he is looking at me like, "what?"

so then i said, "or maybe when you are dead, i will just bring my book here and have lunch and drink sodas and read my book. i could spend all afternoon here, munching and drinking and reading . . . "

he just looked at me and said, "we are not coming here anymore."

i don't think he is quite ready to deal with my inner little old lady . . .

3 comments:

Mom said...

Your idea of the retired little old lady day sure doesn't fit my little retired old day. I wish!! Dream on!!!

Jewelielyn said...

well mom, that just proves that you are not yet a little old lady!

Wendy said...

haha! I think you need to be 70 just to eat there! We have had that feeling too! I am not ready to be an old lady! Nope, not even a little!