Saturday is going to be a red-letter day in the history of Designated Writers and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

It’s been decades since I covered an LSU game. It’s been almost as long since I covered a Louisiana Tech game. Co-founder Teddy Allen is in the press box for 12 or 13 major college games every year. I’ve been to zero for as long back as I can remember.

So when Tech goes to Baton Rouge to take on LSU in Tiger Stadium, we are bringing it and bringing it strong. We are closing the DW offices and will be all hands on deck in the press box.

You cannot imagine how fired up I am.

I’m no great fan of LSU, but I covered enough games there to know how special the game-day experience is. Of course, I have been constantly reminded by my LSU friends for years now. But it is something to be seen and experienced. So while one half of the DW staff gets ready to call the game on the Tech Radio Network, the other half is going to everybody’s tailgate party. I’m looking you up and I’m dropping by. As many as possible.

After that, I am heading to the press box to cover a Division I football game, just like I used to do all the time. It’s going to be so great and I can’t wait.

It also says a little bit about how far Designated Writers has come. Yeah, I’ll toot our own horn — we are going to cover the game just like the newspapers do, only you won’t have to wait a day and half to read about it. I have no idea how I’ll approach the game coverage, which is just how I used to like to do it. Just go up the press elevator, sit down by the placard that has my name on it and figure it out.

Yes, there is some concern that both Designated Writers will be in one place at the same time, but all the proper documents are in place so we feel like appropriate measures are in place.

This is Everyday America.

Most of this story is actually true.

Peanut was missing, and this was a terrible thing.

Peanut is a gold fish who belongs to an elementary school-aged friend of mine. Like clockwork, when my man comes home from school, Peanut is right there in his gold fish bowl, as you would expect. This is a well-mannered and trained fish.

Except…except yesterday, he wasn’t in his bowl. Wasn’t in the bathroom. Wasn’t on the stationary bike in the garage.

“PEANUT!” He wouldn’t answer.

Grandma got to looking around. Inside Peanuts’ quarters, things had been arranged in Peanut’s gold fish bowl — a castle moved or a rock re-arranged there, probably a feng shui something or other either Peanut or grandma had seen on cable television. Well, the crest was too high, and this allowed Peanut to vault out of, although quite by accident, his gold fish bowl. Thank goodness that, not a moment too soon, grandma saw Peanut lying on the floor behind the table and some Gold Fish Penthouse magazines.

With the warmth of a mom and the care of a physician, she placed Peanut gingerly back into the water. He struggled. She worked with him a while until finally he was breathing steady, and then swimming, and then acting like the Peanut we’d all come to know and love before The Incident.

They’ve changed his name to Lazarus.

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