They are the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the guys who had a better idea. People like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or the guy who invented the automatic teller machine. Guys who saw an opportunity and were just a little smarter than everybody else.

Add my man Terry Robison to the list.

The 64-year-old Texan ran the numbers on what a retirement home would cost and came up with a better plan — Holiday Inn.

That’s right; he’s moving into the Holiday Inn, and it doesn’t really matter which one.

When Terry put the pencil to it, he found the cost of a retirement home came out to be about $188 a day. With his senior discount, Holiday Inn would run him about $60 a day. That leaves $128 for whatever expenses he wants and wherever he wants to spend it. No need to wait for the shuttle!

Over the cost of a year and that comes to $68 grand for the old folks home and about $22k for the Holiday Inn. And that might be a little generous on the cost of senior living. There are some estimates that say retirees could be looking at almost $100 large in some cases.

“It takes months to get into a decent nursing home. Holiday Inn will take you tomorrow,” Robison said. “And you’re not stuck in one place forever — you can move from Inn to Inn, or even city to city.”

Also, there is night security, room service and a swimming pool. And don’t forget free little soaps and shampoos … the savings just keep adding up!

Not only that, think of all Priority Club points Terry will rack up. He could roll those babies into quite a few free rooms at a Holiday Inn.

Where it will feel just like home.

When you gotta go you gotta go.

Designated Writers understands, supports, and “gets” this. We feel your pain. We’ve felt OUR pain. Daily. With age, it happens.

But…

Yesterday a friend in the restaurant bidness sent me a text and photo: “Just when I think I’ve seen it all … someone opens their minivan sliding door and tells their kid to pee in the drive-thru…”

That was his text. The picture was of a kid, standing in the back of the minivan, peeing in the drive-thru. I mean, it’s right there. And granted, from the stream and arc, the kid had to go.

The thing is, there was an actual toilet not 20 feet from the child. But the caregiver said, IN A DRIVE-THRU, let ‘er rip.

And the kid did.

In the picture there is one of those little squares with the suction cup hanging on the passenger side of the minivan’s windshield. You know, the ones that usually read “Baby On Board.” I cannot tell from the photo but I guess this one says “Urinator On Board. (Steer clear! Just sayin’!)”

Sigh…

Thirty-plus years ago I covered the Waterproof at Wisner homecoming football game. In a tiny plywood pressbox, I sat with the PA announcer. I actually sat outside at first because it was a cool night; the mosquitoes, stinging me like tiny British Spitfires, drove me inside.

By halftime, the PA announcer was drunk on whiskey he had in a brown paper bag; he drank it straight from the bottle between plays. Fine. To each his own. Except that after he had announced the Homecoming Court — they’d been driven one by one, seated on convertibles, mostly 1980s Mustangs, around the field — he moved out of my line of sight and I heard what I thought was a faucet running. Neg. He was peeing, in the back of the plywood pressbox. On a night when it was at least 110 degrees of heavy north Louisiana air.

I moved back into the stands. I’d rather fight the mosquitoes.

The dateline on my story was WISNER —

I should have made it WIZNER —

Gee whiz…Some people…

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