" /> BRAINPAN LEAKAGE » fast food
  • But, It Was Right Here…

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    Continued from: I Cannot Tell A Lie…

    EK Is Not Amused...I can still hear all of you grumbling about the way the last entry ended. Well, what did you expect? You should know me by now.

    So, anyway, toss the bones, pull out the wet naps, and clean yourselves up. It’s time to continue the story. BTW, just put the bucket in the fridge. I like cold fried chicken and I’m going to need something for breakfast tomorrow.

    Now, back to the Tupperware.

    You see, E K is probably the least gullible person on the face of the planet. Really. I have noted before that it takes an entire covert task force, the involvement of major governments, and a whole fleet of black helicopters to even make a dent in her stoic armor. And, even with all of the above brought to bear on her she simply doesn’t fall for it. I think she might be psychic. I already know she’s psycho, but that’s a different story.

    All I can tell you is that you simply cannot fool this woman. It’s probably the hair. She actually has a T-Shirt she wears that has written across it, “My Red Hair Gives Me Superpowers“. Given the past 22+ years with her, I sincerely believe that. Now, I really have to point out here that I wouldn’t have bothered to reiterate this fact if it wasn’t of absolute importance. In fact, the humor in this missive hinges entirely on this fact:

    You just cannot fool the E K. The odds against your success in doing so are so astronomical that even making the attempt is an exercise in abject futility.

    I’m serious folks.

    Therefore, I’m sure you can understand that I was completely flabbergasted when I realized I was getting away with the lie.

    What lie?

    I already told you – the lie about the Tupperware.

    Here’s the thing… In addition to being unnaturally impossible to fool, The Evil One is also a creature of habit. Not that she’s terribly predictable, mind you, because she isn’t… Not by any stretch. However, when she sets her mind to something she will institute a routine that is to be followed exactly, and until such time as she, and only she, decides said routine is going to change, you best follow the instructions you’ve been given by she who must be obeyed, lest you end up incurring her wrath. The problem with this is, she does not warn you about the changes, so you end up incurring her wrath at some point anyway, no matter what you do. Yes… She uses fear very effectively. You live your life knowing for a fact you are going to “get it”… You just never know when.

    Bettie Page - EK Lunchbox...But, moving right along… One of E Kay’s structured habits is that she takes her lunch as opposed to spending money on fast food. Yeah, she’s pretty damn frugal like that. Of course, this also involves me being responsible for making her lunch, to her exacting specifications, then packing it, again to her exacting specifications, then having her “lunchbox” sitting in exactly the right spot, for her to pick up on her way out the door each morning.

    An EK Lunchbox...Of course, on those days when she is feeling particularly cruel and unusual, she will simply stand next to the “lunchbox” tapping her dainty Mary-Jane clad foot while glaring at me with a look of disdain and expectation. This is the signal that I am to drop whatever I am doing and tote her “lunchbox” out to the vehicle for her. Failing to do so in a timely fashion generally results in severe bruising and even a few minor abrasions.

    I would be remiss, of course, if I didn’t point out that the extent of the injuries is in direct correlation to whether or Another EK lunchbox...not she is feeling so evil as to pick up said lunchbox and beat me with it. That is why she has several lunchboxes with various designs. Unfortunately they just don’t make them like they used to, and these days they tend dent easier and have to be replaced often.

    Of course, there is an entire reversed version of this routine every evening when she arrives home – I have to meet her at the door with her drink, then lay down on the floor so she can wipe her shoes, then when she eventually allows me back up on my knees, I take the lunchbox from her and scurry into the kitchen with it. Once there I have to place the ice packs into the freezer, cull out the recyclables from the garbage, etc, then get dinner on the table before she has a chance to beat me with a broom handle.

    But, speaking of the lunch box, this is where the lie about the Tupperware comes in…

    You see, E K is a big fan of water. She’s also a big fan of environmental stewardship. So, rather than use bottled water, she has a fancy pink reusable Rubbermaid water bottle, as well as a tall, yellow Tupperware cup with a snap on lid.

    I honestly don’t know what it was that possessed me on the evening in question. Really, I don’t. All I know is that we had only recently returned home from taking the munchkin to a Girl Scout skating party. We were both standing in the kitchen, E K setting about the task of feeding the four legged felines, while I was across the room setting up the coffee pot for the next morning.

    As I scooped fresh grounds into the filter basket I heard myself say, “So, Leggs… Where’s your yellow Tupperware cup?”

    The thing is, I knew exactly where it was. After performing my earlier duties as drink caddy and doormat, I had washed said Tupperware cup, refilled it with filtered water, and placed it into the refrigerator so it would be ready the next morning.

    Of course, her reply was, “It should be in my lunchbox.”

    At this point it was almost as if I was having an out of body experience. Instead of cutting my losses and running, I heard myself say, “Nope. Not in there.”

    I heard her shuffle around the center island then undo the Velcro tab on the miniature padded cooler. A moment later she muttered a “hmph.”

    I should have kept my mouth shut, but apparently I still hadn’t re-entered my body. My voice was now saying, “Did you leave it at work or something?”

    “No,” she replied, confusion evident in her voice. “I’m sure I put it back in my lunchbox.”

    “Well, it wasn’t there when I cleaned it out this afternoon,” I replied.

    The entire time my mouth was moving a little voice was screaming in the back of my skull, “Have you lost your mind! She’s going to kill you!

    But, I was committed – or, I obviously needed to be, because I continued. “Did you maybe leave it in your van?”

    “No,” she replied, her audible consternation growing.

    “You’re sure?” I asked, my mouth no longer governed by anything resembling good sense. “Because I haven’t seen it.”

    “Dammit,” E K muttered. “But, it was right here… I’m sure I put it in my lunchbox.”

    “Could you have left it at a customer’s site or something?” my voice asked, apparently driven by some kind of Kamikaze autopilot.

    “No,” she snapped, and the tone of her voice was saying “don’t be an idiot, of course I didn’t“… Then she huffed and muttered “dammit” once again.

    Now she stalked back around the center island and opened up the cabinet. After some clanking and knocking around she withdrew a smaller, orange Tupperware tumbler.

    “This is too small,” she announced. “Don’t we have another one of the big cups?”

    “Nope,” I replied. “Just the one you lost.”

    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing myself say. I also couldn’t believe she was falling for it. It was at about this time it dawned on me that I was subconsciously keeping my back to her at all times. I continued methodically going about my task of prepping the coffee maker, loading the dishwasher, and whatever else I could find to do, so long as I didn’t turn to face The Evil One. If she couldn’t see my eyes, I was in good shape… For the moment, anyway…

    E K let out an exasperated sigh and returned the orange tumbler to the cabinet with a hollow thump, then withdrew a different plastic cup. Slightly larger, but most certainly not of the proper configuration to fit between the special, curvy, blue-ice cold packs she uses in her lunchbox.

    “Well,” she huffed, annoyance thick in her tone. “It’s not going to fit, but I guess I’ll just have to use one of these tomorrow. Are the lids in the drawer over there?”

    “Yeah,” I replied, now stepping over to the refrigerator as she stomped her way to toward the drawer.

    Swinging open the fridge I stared at the yellow Tupperware cup sitting magnificently upon the top shelf, just in front of the milk. I suddenly felt this horrible rending of the soul sort of sensation that always seems to accompany the process of your incorporeal form unceremoniously slamming back into your body. I blinked, then began laughing. Why was I laughing? To build up a surplus of endorphins, of course, because I had a pretty good idea what was coming next.

    Still, my mouth hadn’t fully reconnected with my brain, therefore it was still running on the suicide mission profile. I stopped chuckling for a moment to take in a breath, then heard myself say, “Did you look in the fridge by any chance?”

    After that, pretty much everything became a blur punctuated by bouts of extreme agony. The last thing I remember clearly was a lightning-like flash of red hair and  a whole lot of fire shooting out of a pair of blue eyes as a banshee like scream echoed in my ears, “It’s Not Nice To Fool Evil Kat!”

    By the way, I’m writing this blog entry from my room at the hospital. The proctologist tells me he’s fairly optimistic about my surgery tomorrow morning to remove the size 7 pump from my… Well… You know. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think he can save the pump itself.

    I guess I’m going to have to take E K shoe shopping when they release me.

    More to come…

    Murv

  • Square Hamburgers Are Evil…

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    Wellllll, it seems the topic of Wendy’s struck a chord with many of you. I’ve received many comments and emails asking me to tell the story now instead of waiting until I come off the road.

    We are still in Sanford, Maine, but right now Morrison is waxing prophetic about various things to a room full of folks (i.e. she’s giving a workshop and I’m not)…Sooooo, that means I actually have a little free time between signing books for folks. It’s probably the only free time I will have until we reach the end of the tour so I thought I’d drop in and run off at the mouth myself.

    Big surprise, right? (Grin)

    So, here’s the thing…I like hamburgers. Cheeseburgers, actually. Now, given a choice I will go for a really good restaurant style burger, but I don’t always have that opportunity. In a pinch, I’ll go for a fast food burger, and that includes Wendy’s. Now, of course, they have the odd notion (much like White Castle or Krystal’s) that hamburgers are square. This is something that I have problems wrapping my head around (yes, I know they stack and ship easier that way, but hamburger are round, cornbread are square where I come from…) Still, as fast food burgers go, Wendy’s makes an edible “sammich”. And, White Castles (i.e. belly bombers, sliders, whatever) are just horribly addictive. This is one of the reasons why I am inclined to believe there is something terribly evil about square hamburgers.

    Anyhow, this book tour started in Nashville, TN…Burns, actually…And that was great. I’ll talk more about that leg of the trip when I do the flying pigs blog…Stop number two, however, was Indianapolis, IN. We started out on Monday last (5/21) with a fairly leisurely drive to Indiana from St. Louis. We hooked up with one of our favorite folks, Edain McCoy, who was gracious enough to open her home to us.

    After the gig at Inner Path that evening, we were hungry. Now, something I’ve rambled about in the past is the fact that when authors get together they kibbitz and commiserate. Since we hadn’t seen Edain for some time, we decided we would all go back to her place, get in our “jammies”, order a pizza, and then visit for a few hours before grabbing some sleep.

    This is where problem one occurs. Edain lives in a new subdivision that is outside Indianapolis proper, and no one was willing to deliver. Problem 1A is that there isn’t much around her area other than a CVS and a Wendy’s…Since the CVS was closed already (not to mention that we weren’t really all about nuking a frozen dinner), Wendy’s it was…

    We all put our shoes back on (yeah, after being on your feet and such at a booksigning it is a great relief to do the patented “Die Hard” practice of kicking off your shoes and walking around making fists with your toes. Fortunately, Hans Gruber hasn’t shown up to chase me yet whenever I have done this…) So, anyway, we climb in the car and head for Wendy’s.

    We reach the lovely oasis of square pressed beef patties and park. About the time we reach the door we discover a sign which says “Short Staff – Use Drive Thru – The Management”…Okay, no big deal. We get back in the car and put ourselves into the queue. When we finally reach the menu board a very unhappy sounding voice barks “Can I help you?”

    Well, since I was driving I was charged with the duty of dolling out the orders, so I start the first of the three and the voice suddenly barks again, “You’re going to have to wait a minute.”

    Okay. Obviously this person is harried here. No biggie, we wait.

    And we wait…

    And we wait.

    Then we waited some more.

    Finally, the still rather pissy voice comes back on and says, “Sorry for your wait, what would you like to order.” As an aside, I don’t actually believe she was sorry at all, but that might just be me…Anyway, I tell her, “I have a few orders here,” and then I give her the first. It happens to be Morrison’s and she wants something akin to a double burger with no pickles or ketchup and a side order of left handed wingnuts with flying monkeys. Okay, so I can’t remember her exact order at this point, but suffice it to say I couldn’t get across to Morrison that we weren’t at Burger King and that Wendy’s motto was NOT have it your way. But, Morrison never listens to me anyway, and to be honest that’s not actually an important point.

    It was at this point the pissy voice barks back, “Are these going to be all on one order?!”

    Okay…My bad. I had used the phrase “a few orders” so I can easily understand the confusion. I replied, “Yes, it’s all one order.”

    This was problem two. Miss Piss on the other side of the intercom didn’t let me get even that short sentence completely out of my mouth before once again demanding to know if it was one order or if it was going to be several tickets. As soon as I could get a word in edgewise I said, “No hon, it’s all on one but I just have to get the individual orders from a few different folks in the car.”

    Now…I am willing to admit that there might have been a bit of mild exasperation in my voice, but nothing angry or pissy. I even have witnesses to that effect. I am also willing to own the fact that I said “hon”. Maybe that was a problem too, but I am from the South and that is not a particularly abnormal thing to say. Of course, maybe in Indianapolis it is viewed as condescending, I don’t know. If it is, I can only apologize and say that it certainly wasn’t my intention. Either way, I am willing to own those two points and state that if they were the problem I am at fault.

    However, I don’t think that was the problem. What I am inclined to believe is that someone didn’t feel like working. Anyhow, Miss Piss proceeds to begin talking over me again. This time, however, she shouts something on the order of, “There’s no reason for you to have an attitude and if you’re going to give me attitude you can just leave!”

    Remember, she didn’t “say” this. She SHOUTED this.

    We all blinked.

    We blinked again.

    Even with the highway nearby you could hear a pin drop.

    Then we collectively picked up our jaws and reseated them on our faces.

    Morrison tells everyone now, after the fact, that she was sitting there counting down because she knew we had about five seconds before the tires would squeal. I don’t doubt this. We know each other fairly well.

    Well…About five seconds later, the tires squealed. Not because I was being hot headed, but just the nature of accelerating away across asphalt while turning the wheel. As we pulled from the parking lot, Miss Piss actually hung out of the drive through window and screamed very sarcastically, “Have a nice evening!”

    Morrison has perpetuated this story all over Pennsylvania and New England ever since. Everywhere we go she now tells everyone that, “Sellars got her kicked out of a Wendy’s in Indianapolis.” Of course, she does then tell the story so that everyone knows she is just joking about the “kicked out” part.

    I have to wonder if Dave Thomas is rolling over in his grave. Who knows…Maybe he will haunt his daughter and while she is surfing the web perhaps she will run across this blog and discover the fresh tarnish on her name.

    Oh, and by the way, we did finally get something to eat…We had Taco Bell for dinner that evening, and it was very good. The people working there were even pleasant and polite.

    I think I’ll probably visit Taco Bell again. Wendy’s, not so much.

    I guess this just proves that square hamburgers really are evil. Something even tells me Miranda probably likes them a lot…

    We are off to Long Island tomorrow for an evening book signing and workshop, so I doubt I’ll have much of a chance to post anything more until the end of the tour.

    So….Till the next time…

    Murv