Hit a Major Milestone

The other day I hit a major milestone. My mother-in-law had her 94th birthday. That's not the milestone. That's just why it happened. We were taking her out to celebrate. The kids wanted to have breakfast in the middle of the day, so we went to IHOP. It was kind of cool. With picking up my daughter from school, we got there about 3:00, and the place was almost entirely empty.

Now, I've been trying to get back on my diet, so I wanted to find something on the menu that was fairly low calorie. I looked over the menu, and it turns out the short stack of three buttermilk pancakes was 430 calories, about two thirds the calories of any of the sandwiches. Yeah, I know that doesn't include butter and the boysenberry syrup. Shut up. Further, it turns out the short stack was on the 55 or older Senior Menu. 

I just turned 55 last month, and though, it pains me to admit I'm a senior, I'm also out of work. And cheap, so I ordered the short stack off the Senior Menu. While I was enjoying my low calorie pancakes with generous amounts of whipped butter and syrup, shut up, I noticed something. The music they were playing was music that I listened to as a kid. 

This is not really new. It's been going on for a long time. When I was a kid, the music they played in places like in IHOP was Muzak, soft pop songs played with strings and piano, so it wouldn't offend anybody. Muzak went away some time ago. Actually, it probably didn't. Some quick research tells me that it just switched to playing real music about twenty years ago. 

I honestly don't know how it works. I know that when it first switched over, it was a mix of 50s through 70s pop/rock. For the last about ten years, it seems to have switched over to 80s music. In IHOP, it was all 70s, like we were listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 soundtrack. Maybe, there are different channels. 

Though getting old sucks, at least I can take solace in hearing music I like in places like IHOP. To be honest, the age I don't mind so much. It's just a number. What bothers me is being overweight. Hence, the diet and my low-calorie pancakes. Shut up.