The Morning Grind

They say confession is good for the soul.

I could use a little today, so here goes.

I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning, so I stopped at the Burger King on Veteran’s Parkway at 12th St. I circled the building and got in the drive through line. When it was time to order, I ordered and moved up to about a foot behind the car in front of me.

Notice I mentioned the distance, this is why:

I still had my window down, and my arm was resting on the window area when I hear this pretty lame honk from this handyman type truck behind me, followed by “Move up, ya dumbass!” Now at this point I was given some opportunities, some of them were:

• Wave my hand similar to a “bye-bye” wave and ignore him
• Yell something back to tell him I didn’t really have much room in front of me to move up
• Move up to a few inches from the car in front of me and hope I don’t need to pull around them for any reason
• Yell something back that had a chance of escalating the situation

Today was “that day” because I just didn’t care what happened. I turned my head around to see if he was still sticking out of the truck window and said:

“There is nowhere to move,” to which, he responded: “There’s 5 feet in front of you, dumbass, move up.”

I replied with “there is about 1-1.5 feet in front of me, douche-bag. Where can I go?” He said something low enough to where I couldn’t hear the response.

The car in front of me moved forward and so did I. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw he was still sitting there at the order taking sign. I continued to flow with the drive through line and went to pay for my order when the cashier asked “how is your day?” to which I replied, “fine except for that guy.” She replied, “I know right??”

I looked in the rear view, and the guy had moved forward finally. When I next looked back, it was after I had got my fully loaded croissan’wich and the man had just moved up to the pay window.

Upon reflection, I think my choice was not the best of ones. At the time, I just didn’t care what happened. Right now, as I write this, I don’t care either.

Let’s look for a moment, what some of the possibilities could have been:

• He could have got out and tried to attack me from outside the car
• He could have pulled a knife
• He could have got out with a gun
• He could have sat there and done nothing more than be the idjet he is
• He could have rammed the back of my car with his truck, which was a Ford with one of those big steel/chrome grill things on the front – which would have done more damage to my Honda than it would have done to his truck
• He could have said “sorry man, I can’t see past the window of your car. I didn’t know you were already pulled up.”

And in infinite universe and infinite probability theory, there is an infinite combination of infinite things that could have happened. And that is part of why I wasn’t worried what might happen.

“Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

Now as I sit here to write this, I thought of another possible option that might have messed him up. I could have asked the pay window employee how much his order was and paid for it. With a condition that she told him that the guy in front of you said to tell you, “I’m not sure what is going on in life for you, but I forgive you.”

And I would have to be in a place that is the opposite of where I am right now to do that one.

But it was an option.