We Pulled a Mark

Back in Michigan, we have a friend named Mark who loves to go to Las Vegas.  He uses the majority of his vacation time each year there.  Mark is a thrifty guy who works all the angles to save a few bucks on his trips.  One of his favorite tricks is to go to a buffet at the very end of the lunch window and then he is just finishing up a salad when all the added items for the higher-priced dinner session are brought out.  Among his circle of friends, this has affectionately come to be know as “Pulling a Mark”.  One time we went to Las Vegas at the same time that Mark was there.  The picture shown is one of Gary “Pulling a Mark with Mark” at the Bellagio.  (That is Mark in the Mr. Weenie Time T-shirt that we bought for him and which quickly became his favorite.)

So, where is this blogpost going and what does it have to do with our full timing adventures?  Well, on our way from New York to Boston, we decided we would stop at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, one of the largest casinos in the world.  They allow you to dry camp in one of their outlying parking lots and we spent one night there.  In our initial tour of the casino, we noticed that they had a buffet and that the buffet was a continuous one from lunch to dinner.  That was a big hmmm for two people of fixed income.  We were in line at 4:45 pm and paid up at the lunch price and sure enough at 5 pm they brought out the additional items they add for the dinner session.  Not only did we “Pull a Mark”, but that day also happened to be the over 60  two-for-one day and we combined the two (but I must note that Gary is the only one of the two of us who is over 60, but then I didn’t turn down the freebie).  What would have been a total of $50 for the two of us for dinner came to $21 for a “Pulling a Mark on a Twofer”.  Gary sent Mark a text message that, “he would be so proud of us”.  And indeed he was responding with an “amazing”.  And, by the way, Mark is on his way to Vegas now where we are sure he will recreate his own interpretation of “Pulling a Mark”.