How A Fast Food Drive Thru Works

If you regularly go to the drive-thru at a fast food place, you should find this somewhat amusing.  If you hardly or never go through the drive-thru at a fast food place, this will be a good refresher for you.

1. As you pull into the parking lot you will see signs for the drive-thru lane which will take you towards the side or back of the restaurant.  The lane is always closest to the building, unless of course there is a second lane to your right marked "drive thru."  If there are two lanes, pick only one.

2. There is usually two and sometimes three windows and sometimes four in the left lane. Typically there is one or two speaker locations in your lane. It's more confusing when you're there. If there is an outside lane there are no windows,  just a speaker to place your order.  In both cases there will be one or two menu boards near the speaker, so you can see what to order, if you can find it among the ads and specials.

3. Usually someone will say something when you pull up and then you tell them what you want, unless you're at the wrong speaker and then they tell you to pull up to the next speaker in the same lane.  Crossing lanes at this point can be fatal and it is discouraged.

4.  The tricky part can be when they tell you to pull up to the first window.  Is it the first one you come to, the one all the way in front or is the window marked "#1".  Pick the window that fits two of the categories and hope for the best. 

5.  Someone should come to the window or they may already be there to tell you how much you owe.  If no one comes to the window, try the next window.  Keep in mind that backing up is not a good move.

6.  Once you pay for your food, you pull up to the next window which should be the last window.  This should be the easy part since you're hungry and you just paid for what you ordered. Take your food and drive away and enjoy your meal.

However, if you skip this window and pull out into the street and reach for your fish sandwich, you're going to be disappointed, because it's still back at the window. When you go back to the fast food place and walk in, you will probably see a worker trying to explain to his boss that this guy just paid for his order and drove away.  At that point, just smile and say, "that would be me."

I'm not saying that this happened to me the other day, I'm just going over some of the procedures and possibilities when you go to a fast food drive-thru.

Getting a Passport

I guess somethings are easier than others.  I often find that anytime I have to fill out forms and go to an office and pay money, it can be a very long and difficult process.  Maybe it's just me, maybe not.

In South Carolina as in some other states, you will soon need a passport to get on an airplane and travel even commercially.  I don't do much traveling in the air, but being down south and having family up north, it seemed like a good idea to get this done so I have it.  I do have second thoughts about that decision.

My wife just got her passport, so following her instructions it would be easier, maybe.  She got the "right" birth certificate for me and I went to a CVS and got a passport picture taken for $15.  I found the form online and my wife offered to fill it out for me online, but I wanted to make it more difficult for myself so I said I would do it-by hand.  I figured taking the computer out of it would make things easier for me.

I filled the form out and knew I needed two checks and I found a post office that I could get it at.  Except when I got there, they don't take them anymore.  They sent me to the court house, but there were two court houses buildings and I went to the wrong one first.  There were only two people in line and I thought-this is going to be easy!

The guy told me the good news and the bad news.  The good news was that I had the right form and it was filled out, the bad news was that it was in blue ink and not black(I would make a joke about that, but not these days). I also found out that I needed only one check for a hundred plus dollars and I had to have $25 in cash, which I did not.

So I brought the form back home and I copied everything in black and I discovered that I put the wrong city I was born in and I did not put the city my wife was born in.  There's also an emergency contact person that I left blank, can it really get much easier?

Tomorrow is the big day!  I've got cash, a check, the form, the picture, and several verifications of my ID.  The only thing I may not have to get this done... is time to do it.

Goodbye Gladys

You didn't know Gladys and I didn't either.  It would be fair to say that no one knew Gladys, because she wasn't a person.  My youngest daughter and wife decided to name my wife's gall bladder Gladys, before it was removed.  It was probably the two G's that did it, but that's the name of her gall bladder.

When you have a planned surgery everything is very precise in what you have to do.  You get a call the day before telling you when to be at the hospital and you make sure you're there.  You know that they will be waiting for you and there's a timetable set-up for a number of surgeries that day.  The call came in and although they left a phone message to be at the hospital at 9:30 this morning, my wife and I both spoke with the person who told us 9:30.  We planned on getting there some time after 9 am.

At 8:15 the hospital called, because they were looking for us.  Gladys was scheduled to be removed at 9:20 am and we were 25-30 minutes away.  Gladys was going to survive a little bit longer than expected.  Although they were running 15-20 minutes behind, everything went smoothly, except for Gladys.

It just goes to show you, no matter who you're dealing with or what the situation is, everyone's human-except Gladys of course.

How Many Pancake Houses Are There?

We've been told that people in the south really love breakfast, but we learned yesterday that it's really true.  We've been in Myrtle Beach a number of times, but mostly the southern part which doesn't have as many tourist areas.  As we drove to the Convention Center in the heart of the tourist area, I spotted a Pancake House on my right.

My wife loves IHOP and quickly said something like, "but there's no IHOP."  One short block up on the other side of the street was the IHOP and the next block had another Pancake House on the right side and another one on the left side.

Just to clarify: there were four Pancake Houses within 2 1/2 short blocks on the same street.  If you lived right there you could go to a different one four straight days and walk there.  Or, you could pick which one to go to depending on how many cars were in the lot.

So next time you're waiting in line at your local Pancake House, just think about Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  This is the place that has Pancake Houses almost on every block. Unfortunately for my wife, there are ONLY four IHOP locations listed in Myrtle Beach.

I Think My Left Ear is Sunburned

Yesterday was February 16th and my left ear got sunburned.  The temperature got up to 79 degrees and we spent an hour or two outside walking on the beach and sitting watching the waves come in.  I know, it wasn't a very busy Friday, but the weather was beautiful.

I have fair skin so anytime I'm out in the sun I'm a little wary of how much sun I"m in.  I always have a hat on since the few strands of hair do not protect my scalp at all.  The sun was strong and I did not put any sunscreen on.  I knew I messed up and figured I would keep turning when I was walking so the same part of me doesn't get burned.(just imagine cooking on the grill when you keep turning the steak so it cooks all over)

When the day was over I thought I had done pretty well with the sun.  Last night, I could feel my face burning up some and all I could see in the mirror was one bright red ear.  Still, I was feeling pretty good and lucky until we went to bed.  My wife said that today we could take a couple chairs and an umbrella and sit on the beach for a couple hours.  A couple hours???

What a great looking day it is here on Saturday morning.  It's going to be a cloudy day!

Obstacles Exist To Be Overcome

I just finished an interesting book on leadership skills you can learn from Ernest Shackleton's failed Antarctica expedition in the early 1900's.  Everything went wrong on the trip and it took two full years for them to be rescued, but everyone survived. It may not sound like an interesting book to you, but this one line from the author was pretty significant-"Obstacles Exist To Be Overcome."

We all have obstacles, some big and some small. What if they really existed only for the purpose of them being overcome? A long time ago I saw someone on a stage put a chair down and explain that there are many ways of getting around the chair-to the right, to the left, underneath it, over it, or through it.

When my youngest daughter was very upset that she didn't get into Cornell University, her first choice, I wrote her a poem entitled, "Cornell Who?" I told her that it would be the best thing that ever happened to her. She would look back at the experience years from now and realize all the experiences that she wouldn't have had if she had gone to Cornell and all the people she wouldn't have met. I think that's the way she looks at it today.

So when you face an obstacle, focus on how you can overcome it, not on the obstacle. Maybe that is the only reason it exists?

To Eat or Not To Eat-That is The Question

It's not unusual for people to consider if they should eat something.  Typically, they are debating if they want to eat a little more, or is this food healthy for them to eat. However, how often do you sit with some kind of food in front of you and ask yourself, "Is this something you eat?"

One of my wife's favorite stories about me was when we were dating.  We went to a restaurant that I think was called "Beefsteak Charlies" and they had "all you can eat" shrimp.  I liked shrimp a lot and got a full plate and enjoyed eating it.  When I got up to get more shrimp, the guy sitting at the table nearby said to Monika, "I've never seen anyone eat the entire shrimp." 

Monika didn't eat shrimp and she didn't know there was something wrong with what I was eating. For some reason I thought you were supposed to eat the crunchy part too.  It wasn't as good as the rest of it of course, but I ate it all.  The second plate I believe I skipped eating the crunchy part.  Looking back now, it may be that when we had shrimp at our house the ends were already cut off.(maybe)  Or, it could be that I was just a kid and had no clue.

Yesterday morning I took out the pineapple that Monika bought for me and it was in a container, so I let it slide out.  I cut a few pieces and I sat there staring at it.  There was a core part in the middle that was harder than the pineapple.  Do you eat the core too?  Monika wasn't around, so she couldn't save me.  There were four cores so I figured I would taste one-it wasn't very good.  Being a number's guy, I figured I would eat two of the four and throw the other two out, which is what I did.

So, in case you're asking yourself this, do I eat it or not? Don't eat the whole shrimp and throw out the core of the pineapple, but what if some of your bread crust is moldy? I have ripped off the crust and eaten the rest of it, but you probably knew I was going there.

Explaining "The Lord of the Rings" in Fifteen Seconds

My mother-in-law is in an assisted living place and I visited her yesterday.  The day before they were going to be playing a movie at 3, so I suggested to her that she should go over to the room and watch it.  I figured it would be an older type movie that she would like.

She told me that the movie was "The Lord of the Rings," which I found hard to believe.  It would not be on my list of 100 movies(or 300) to show at an assisted living place.  So I asked her what it was about and she said, "there was a village with a lot of kids and a very old man who rode in on a carriage and a guy with a long, white beard." The white beard tipped me off that it had to be "The Lord of the Rings."  She only watched about ten minutes which was probably a good thing.  I don't think there's any way she would have enjoyed it.

I had to tell her what the movie was about, so I gave he condensed version-about thirty seconds.  I said, "There's this Hobbit who finds this powerful ring that he has to destroy by getting it to a mountain and throwing it into the fire inside.  If he doesn't destroy it, the evil guy will get it and destroy mankind and rule the world." 

I skipped the other seven or eight hours of the trilogy. I'll save that for another day-not.

It Was 54 Years Ago Today

It was about ten weeks after President Kennedy was killed in Dallas, but today is the anniversary of another day that changed history.  Four lads from Liverpool, England arrived at JFK airport on February 7, 1964 and were greeted by 3,000 screaming teenagers.  

They appeared twice on "The Ed Sullivan Show" with an estimated TV audience of 73 million people(or 75% of the country).  It's fun to look back at some of the media comments at the time which were almost all negative.  

Newsweek              Feb. 24, 1964

"Visually they are a nightmare, tight, dandified Edwardian-Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair. Musically they are a near disaster, guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of "yeah, yeah, yeah") are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments….

The big question in the music business at the moment is, will the Beatles last? The odds are that, in the words of another era, they're too hot not to cool down, and a cooled-down Beatle is hard to picture. It is also hard to imagine any other field in which they could apply their talents, and so the odds are that they will fade away, as most adults confidently predict. But the odds in show business have a way of being broken, and the Beatles have more showmanship than any group in years; they might just think up a new field for themselves. After all, they have done it already."

What if they didn't come to America? Would there have been a British Invasion in the 60's? Would we have ever heard of "The Backstreet Boys" or "Destiny's Child?"(music groups) Would the Super Bowl halftime show be as big as it is? Would the music industry be what is today?

Imagine being one of the teenagers at the airport as "The Beatles" walked down the steps of that airplane. How many times over the years did they say to someone, "I was there the day "The Beatles" arrived.  There are very few years that are so dominated by a person or group or an event that you automatically identify the two together.(2001 and 2016 are two recent ones)  1964 was clearly the year of "The Beatles". 

My favorite song, "American Pie" by Don McLean talks about, "The Day The Music Died", the awful day that three popular musicians were killed in a plane crash.  A good argument can be made that 54 years ago today, four musicians arrived in New York and it was the day that music was born.

I still "believe in yesterday."

-

What Are They Thinking About?

Sometimes I read a story about someone who does something off the wall(maybe they live in California?) and I say, "what are they thinking about?" Other times, I'll see someone on the road do something that borders on craziness.  Like the time I saw a guy sitting at a traffic light and suddenly decide to go on the shoulder and get ahead of the car in front of them,  turn left on red and get on a busy highway.  I'm sure you've had similar experiences and asked yourself the same question.

I've always been baffled when I see someone mowing their lawn at 8 am on a Sunday morning. Do they know that it's Sunday and some people are sleeping? Are they totally oblivious to everything around them? Are they thinking at all?  I once saw a woman mowing her lawn in a neighborhood on a weekday at 7 am. when it was just getting light.  I wanted to pull the car over and say, "What are you thinking about?" I will do that one day, but today is not that day.

On Saturday, I did ask myself that question.  I walked out of the bedroom and heard someone vacuuming above me at 6:30 am.  At first I thought maybe I wasn't awake, but I was.  Before they checked out of this condo or hotel they decided to vacuum? Or, before they played a round of golf in 28 degree temperatures, they loosened up by vacuuming? Or, the maid was straightening up the room and vacuuming at 6:30 am? 

Pick one, I don't have a clue,but it did happen. I wonder how many times someone sees me doing something and they say, "what is he thinking about?"

Have You Ever Forgotten Something Really Important?

You may have forgotten the time that you did, but if it was really important, you probably already thought about it.  Usually when someone forgets something they will say, "I can't remember it," or they'll say, "It's on the tip of my tongue."  I learned many years ago that you have to program your mind to remember it and say, "I'll think of it in a minute."  This has worked for me many times, but it's not perfect.

Last Sunday it was after 8 am and I was returning to our condo after getting a newspaper and bagels.  Since the resort area we're staying in is about 95% empty, I was surprised to be riding up the elevator with someone.  I was talking to him as I walked down towards our door and then put in the code to open the door.  It didn't work, so I tried it again.  It was only four numbers, but somehow, I totally blanked out and could not remember the numbers.  I tried a few more combinations with no success.

Everyone was sleeping, but I had a paper and a bagel.  It was mild so I was very comfortable sitting down near the door and reading the paper.  I couldn't believe that I didn't know the four numbers, since I had been using them for the past month.  After about twenty minutes I tried a few more times to open the door, but I failed.

I decided to get some exercise and started walking up and down the balcony hallway.  I tried to get my mind blank and come up with the number, but it took twenty minutes of walking before I got the right answer.  The four numbers are the last four numbers of my wife's phone number,. Since I only press a button on the phone,I had no idea what her number was and I did not know that was the code.

The good news is, I now know my wife's phone number and when I fill out a form for an emergency number I don't have to look it up. All it took was spending 45 minutes being locked out on  a Sunday morning.