I Have Measured My Life With Grand Slam Breakfasts

This afternoon at work I was talking to one of those twentysomething crazy college kids. Part of his story involved a late night sortie to Perkins on a Friday night. And that got me to thinking about restaurants like Perkins. Is there a name for this genre of restaurant? The Diner Chains? You know the ones I'm talking about: Perkins, Denny's, Bakers Square, Jim's, Village Inn...

So far as I can tell, for a restaurant to be included in this group it must have at lest seven of the nine following traits.
-Open 24 hours a day.
-Breakfast served at all hours.
-Has to be a chain or franchise.
-Wide range of desserts, especially pie.
-Standard, dutiful hamburger and sandwich menu.
-Bright, low hanging lights.
-Utilitarian seats, booths, and tables.
-Laminated menus with lots of pictures.
-Nicknames for their menu items (i.e. Grand Slam Breakfast, The Perkins 7)

It seems to me these restaurants fade in and out of our lives. Here's the stages I've come up with.

Stage I The Home Cooking and Fast Food Phase. Birth to five. Kids are too young to really enjoy restaurants outside of saw dust nuggets, er chicken nuggets, marketed with the help of a clown and shitty plastic toys from China.

Stage II The Introductory Phase. Age five to 11. These restaurants are a special treat at this age. A nice place to get an awesome breakfast or lunch. As a kid I used to frequent the Denny's by mom's bookstore. It was a great place to eat breakfast or have breakfast food for my lunch. It was also a big deal if we got to go to Jim's for lunch and get what, in retrospect, is a very standard hamburger.

Stage III Hiatus #1. Age 11 to 15. During this age kids are too busy with school, sports, or other hobbies. Also the palate becomes a little more refined so there is now a wider range of places a kid will want to eat at. This combination of schedule demands and a refined palate leads to fewer trips to Denny's or Perkins.

Stage IV Keep The Party Going Phase. Through high school, college, and the immediate years after college, these restaurants serve as great gathering place post-moive, post-party, post-barhopping... You don't go there for the fine dining and ambiance, so much as for the fact they are open late and you can get pancakes at 2 a.m. Dude!

Stage V Hiatus #2. The Boring Grown-Up Phase. Welcome to me. If I am going to spend my money going out-to-eat, it sure better be with good company, over good food. So breakfast and lunch at Bakers Square is out. Also, my Friday nights usually end by 10 p.m. when my Netflix movie is over. So a late night run to Perkin's is out.

Stage VI Stage III Revisited. This is for all you parents who have kids aged between five and 11. They want to go to Denny's for breakfast. You take them.

Stage VII Hiatus #3. This is when your kids have outgrown stage III. Once again, you have no reason to go to Village Inn.

Stage VIII The Blue Hair Phase. I don't know why, but I always see senior citizens at Perkins. Maybe the food is easy to digest. I guess I'll find out for myself in 35 years if all goes well for me.

Dirty Dog

There are many subtle (and definitely not-so-subtle) differences between living in San Antonio and living in Minneapolis.

One subtle difference is, in Minnesota, you have to drain and turn off the water to your outside water faucet by the end of November. If you don't, you may have some frozen pipes to contend with.

No one loves this cold-weather-living tidbit than Pancho. Like most four year old males, he HATES baths. I give him occasional baths in the bathtub during the winter but it makes a huge mess. Such a mess that I prefer him to be a little stinky rather than subject him to water torture (or at least that's how it feels to him). He gets so scared in the bathtub when I rinse him off.

So Pancho may miss the trips to the lakes and swims in Minnehaha Creek that summer brings. But he also really enjoys winter, and the lack of baths that it brings. Next weekend will probably be Pancho's last bath for many months.

Rant Emily is Sick Of #893909

Is anyone else bothered by the commercials Visa has been running designed to make the use of cash seem obsolete, old, and lame? These ads have been bothering me for a long time. I know Emily has seen them, because she has been listening to me rail agaisnt them everytime we see one.

Well apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. Click here to read exactly why these ads bother me. It mirrors the rant I would have written, only the link provided is written in a much more concise and informed fashion.

The ad that really bothers me is one that features the New Orleans Saints. The ad shows a bunch of football fans in New Orleans marching around alive and well. New Orleans is back! Life is good!

Nevermind that New Orleans' post-Katrina population is less than 60% of its pre-Katrina level. Apparently we are all supposed to feel things in New Orleans are going GREAT because they have a pro football team. So New Orleans is now some feel good story just because it has pro sports and conventions. Doesn't that trivialize and gloss over the fact that city has a long way to go before it can be put back together again. Or the fact that in 2005 freaking corpses were floating in the streets?

END RANT HERE