It's MY Pleasure

I've worked a lot of fast food in my 34.9 years. Let's see...there's Tom's Place when I was 15, Captain D's was right after that, and then it seems Hardee's fell in there somewhere during a summer home from college. And there's one simple thing all of those jobs had in common.

 

They all sucked.

 

Big time. I HATED them.

 

Captain D's was the best, even though I would got tossed into the ice machine on a daily basis. That's just what you get for being mouthy, I suppose. Can anyone say sexual harassment?

 

Anyways, the training time for each of those jobs was about...hmmm...let's say 30 minutes. You could learn everything you needed to know to earn $4.25 an hour in exactly a half hour. No more. Seems like I watched a couple of VHS tapes on "customer service" and then they fed me to the angry, hungry people of the Searcy, Arkansas fast food industry. I was all "trained up" and ready to be attacked.

 

And attacked I was.

 

So, no, I didn't magically know what was in a Seafood Sampler or a Deluxe Platter. But I learned. Fast. AND, in all of my lacking mathematical skills, I somehow learned how to count change back IN MY HEAD without using a cash register. I'm still pretty damn proud of that skill. You see, I'm a words gal. Math is for people that can't spell. But now, thanks to my on-the-job training at the best fast food seafood restaurant on the planet, that sophisticated math formula guy from Good Will Hunting ain't no match for me.

 

Point is this: I made minimum wage, which in my 15-year-old mind equated to minimum caring. I didn't care that your hamburger had tomatoes on it instead of lettuce or if the chips I gave you were salted or unsalted. But you know who does care?

 

Chick-fil-A. They care. They even tell you about it every chance they get with their "it's my pleasure" crap. And once, just ONCE I want to come back with, "do you really? Do you REALLY care?"

 

They don't. They can't. But what matters is that Chick-fil-A somehow gets their people to say it all the time company wide. And what's up with the lines there? They always seem to have like 8 lines running simultaneously.

 

I mean that place has more employees than Springdale has Mexican restaurants.

 

But listen Chick-fil-A execs...your kids meal toys completely blow. They're **gasp** educational toys, paperback books, or random cow printed toothbrushes. Thanks for letting my educational resistant kids trade in your toys for a free ice cream cone. A little bit more sugar won't kill 'em. Will it? Hadn't killed 'em yet.

 

But then again I'm really just figuring this parenting thing out as I go, so I really have no earthly idea. I'll keep you posted.

Andy Griffith meets Green Acres

There's just something about small town Arkansas that I love. Well, love might be a strong word for it. Maybe like. Or relish. Or perhaps appreciate. No...I love it. I do. I think.

I've always lived in the country. I grew up on a dairy farm for cryin' out loud. Fences break. Cows get out. It happened all the time. And nobody cared. NOBODY.

Oh sure, drivers would stop by and ask, "This here your cow? Might wanna get it back in the fence before someone thinks it's a deer and shoots it dead."

"Thanks," I would respond. "I'll do that."

Truth is I hated it when people would stop by and tell me crap like that. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I didn't know if it was our cow. How was I supposed to tell? All cows look the same to me. And even if it was, how was I supposed to get it back into the right pasture? And how was I going to do that exactly? Run behind it and flap my arms yelling, "SOUIEE?" How? Tell me, how? Ugh.

If I saw a cow in my backyard today I would think to myself, "Oh, well hello there Mr. (or Ms.) Cow." And then I'm sure I would muster up a couple of "moos" like I do every time I encounter a bovine of its kind. I've gotten quite good at my cow impersonation over the years. Ask me sometime; you'll be impressed. But, I digress.

But for some reason that I have yet to figure out, my next-door neighbor sees a cow in her backyard this evening and decides to call the police. That's right.

Really? Is it that big of a deal. I just about laughed out loud when I saw the police car in the street in front of my house. Maybe that's what you're supposed to do, but not where I'm from. Besides it would have taken the sheriff way too long to get out there. It just wasn't worth it. And remember? Nobody cared.

No worries, though. For the next 20 minutes, Mr. bald, unnamed Police Officer looks around in some brush with his handy, dandy flashlight for a "beige" calf as he called it. It was comical really. He wouldn't actually enter the brush, of course. He just shined his light through some grass so thick there was no way we gonna be able to see anything on the other side.

And what were we gonna do if we found it? It's not like we had a rope, a chain, or um...hello, a cattle trailer to transport the runaway mooing creature back to it's home. Did we just get the pleasure of screaming, "there it is!" and looking around for others to be jealous of our newly found discovery? Seriously.

When it became obvious that we weren't gonna locate this alleged calf, Mr. bald unnamed Police Officer then strolls over to my neighbors pool and proclaims, "Well, that's a short fence...I could get over this thing and jump right in."

"I will if you will," I offer.

I mean, my neighbors have NEVER invited me over to swim. I figure if the policeman is doing it, then it must be okay. Right?

No such luck. Our night ended with no calf, no swim, no flashing lights, no cruise in the police car, no taser demonstration like on The Hangover...nothing.

There's always next Saturday night.

Hello fanny pack. Meet my cell phone.

Ah, the fanny pack.

It's like a Baby Bjorn for old people.

And to my Aunt Callie, it's like heaven with a self-adjustable waist strap...the best thing since sliced bread.

I'm exactly 5 years, 1 month, and 28 days away from owning one. That's right. I figure by the time I turn 40, I'll be able to carry around all of my necessities right there within arms' reach. No more purses with annoying straps falling off my shoulder. No more worrying about someone stealing my purse in the front of the shopping cart at Wal-Mart while I walk away to get the barbecue sauce.

And no more asking the kids, "Has anyone see my purse?" Ah, never mind. There it is. Right there on my waist for all to see and adore.

And the options and varieties are endless.

There's this one for the fashionable:

Or this one with a handy, dandy pocket for my cell phone:Of course I seem to be the only one left on the planet that doesn't have an iPhone, a Droid, or at the very least a Blackberry. Ken doesn't believe in any phone that gets internet access. Not even a little bit. Zilcho. Nada. I know Ken...$60 a month (for 2 phones) times 12 month a year = $720 a year. I get it.

So what. My cell phone was super cool when I got it almost 3 years ago. And it's better than the flip phone that Mark Paul Gosselaar used in NYPD Blue. Beat that.

It doesn't have internet access...or email...and doesn't allow me to see pictures when people email them to me. Big deal. But that doesn't stop me from picking it up every now and then and pretending like it's touch activiated anyway. One of these days it just might work.

And on a side note: if I see one more teenage girl that can text on a cell phone faster than I can type on my computer keyboard, I'm seriously gonna take her down.

So for now, I'm stepping down off of my soapbox and taking my antique cell phone with me. And if someone sees me in 5 years, 1 month and 28 days donning a fanny pack, please just shoot me and hide my body. Wait a second. Shoot me. Unstrap the fanny pack. And then hide my body. Mission Accomplished.