Unbagging the Cats 1

Unbagging the Cats 1

Friday, May 25, 2012

Like Steam to My Ears

My mom and I hit the streets this morning to visit the bank, Goodwill, my savings & loan, Walmart, Arby's, and Sonic. Yep. We hit all the main attractions. Let the record show that I was depositing, donating, paymenting, picking up some shorts for Genius, eating lunch, and trying to buy a soda. In that order.

Mom even bought me a Buddy Poppy, as well as one for herself. Let the record also show that we did not use our Poppies for ulterior purposes. We did not cook and shoot heroin, nor lay down in our field of two Poppies and go to sleep, nor apply their seeds to muffins to eat and fail a drug test and scam a jar of urine off Helen Seinfeld so Mr. Peterman would let us go to Kenya to get ideas for knock-off sandals like those worn by the Massai.

No, Mom bought us each a Buddy Poppy because she views them like crucifixes for vampires. "I always buy one, and twist it onto my purse strap. Then wherever I go, I can point to it and say, 'I already donated. Got my Poppy right here.' "

She also sprung for lunch. I repaid her by refilling my soda cup with her beverage of choice as we left. So she could have two sodas to take home. Mountain Dew. To fortify herself for the long evening to come, since The Pony and Genius had plans to invade her happy home.

Sonic was my idea. Ever since the one between work and Backroads went out of business, I have had to settle for gas station soda. But the Arby's town had a Sonic. So I pulled in to order at the drive-thru. Which was a major mistake, what with the car in front of me taking six minutes to order. I almost left. But I wanted that Route 44 Cherry Diet Coke. When it was my turn, the speaker sputtered. It squealed. Yet I heard no human voice. I waited. The speaker waited. I said, "I wonder if someone is ready to take my order." The speaker did not respond. But then it buzzed at me. That was enough. I pulled out of line and settled for a gas station soda on down the road.

I am not trusting people who cannot figure out how to work a speaker with pushing a button to send soda into my cup. And that flavor pumpy thing, too. They are either too gadgetly-challenged to do that job, or they are TWWA. Teen Workers With Attitudes. Neither shall touch a beverage that I plan to imbibe.

Maybe they were just messing with me. Which means that inside Sonic, I was being thought of as Sasquatch. It reminded me of Yaphet Kotto in the original Alien, when Sigourney Weaver went to ask him about repairs to the ship, and he kept turning the steam valve so a loud hissing noise drowned out our Ellen Ripley, and he could make her keep repeating herself. "What? WHAT?"

So I told Mom, "I've had enough. I don't need a Sonic soda that bad." And I pulled out of line and left. I think I handled it remarkably well, considering that I had planned on getting that soda all week. Nobody is a winner when Val lets Soda Rage get the best of her.

In the Sonic line, everyone can hear you scream.

2 comments:

Sioux Roslawski said...

This evening, I started salivating over the aroma that wafted through the air. Calzones. Where were they baking, or where in the world were they waiting, oozing their spicy goodness in readiness for my appetite to reach its pinnacleI could not wait!

But alas, it was a cruel trick...No calzones for me.

Have a Sonic soda tomorrow. In this case, being "late" is not a catastrophic thing...

Val said...

Sioux,
Some people will salivate over the smell of oven-warmed clothing. I, myself, am not one of them.

You're right on the late soda. A catastrophic thing would be if I let somebody pick up my mail while I was out of town, and a neighbor's work visa renewal was put in my box, and that neighbor ended up being deported. After I had advised him on switching his restaurant cuisine to Pakistani dishes, too.