They had him at "Leg of Lamb"

At least that’s the running joke.

So it’s to be Roanoke College. No more applications -- even fee-free ones are being ignored.

Saturday’s visit down to Salem clinched it. All the Linguinis, and families of Linguini offspring friends, were very impressed and, of course, all you have to do is feed me and you’re invited to my wake, let alone trust you to oversee my youngest child for four years.

Of course, I’m not the one making this decision…Heir 2 is. He was playing it cool there for awhile, saying he was going to hold out for Yale. But he met with the head of the computer science department and had a nodding meeting with a member of the mathematics faculty at Roanoke and, while he was uncomfortable and a little intimidated, he was also excited by the opportunities they were offering.

He still didn’t mention this to Dirtman and me and we continued to try to point out to him all the advantages of a school only a few hours from home.

And so we sat in on a really helpful financial session that broke down what we all needed to do to make the next four years happen which, as it turns out, may actually be do-able (because, for obvious reasons, I had my doubts).

Then they fed us.

There was an entire wall of cold cereal. Heir 2 nearly had a heart attack. Cold cereal around here is considered a treat – if I buy it, make it last because it’s the most expensive and nutritionally useless food on the planet next to Twinkies (at least, the cereals Heir 2 likes).

During our tour of the campus (lovely campus, BTW, especially this time of year), our guide mentioned how the meal system works, adding that what we ate in the cafeteria that morning was “the weekend food.”

“I’m not as fond of the weekend food,” he shrugged and proceeded to tell us about how during the week they might be carving a leg of lamb or a ham for dinner.

Heir 2 stopped the tour. “Wait a minute,” he said incredulously, “you mean that was the bad food?”

And so it was that at that moment his decision was made. He marched himself right into the bookstore and purchased a Roanoke College hoodie.

Heir 2 is anxious to get started, but first we have to scrounge the money to secure his place next year – scrounging because, ironically, declaring bankruptcy is extremely expensive. Once that’s paid, he’s got scholarships and financial aid to apply for.

And so we begin to cobble together his financing. Now there’s a word (“financing”) that’s beginning to make me want to beat my head against a brick wall.