Little White Pills

Place: Century Theatres
Lunch: Nathan's Famous hot dog, cherry ICEE

I've been walking around with minor sinus blockage and a headache for about a week now. The cold finally hit full-on over the weekend. So before I went to work, I found a package of store-brand cold/allergy relief stuff in the bathroom. Little white pills. I took one and headed to work.

It worked...my sinuses cleared up and the headache was gone...but the pill had some freaky side effects. The front of my face was numb, I was feeling kind of paranoid, and I just sort of started moving around in slow motion. I could also feel where the sinus problems went to. They were all in a tiny little ball just above the bridge of my nose. All compacted and numb. The feeling is probably similar to Chinese water torture.

Two hours later, I walked into my boss's office and said "I need to leave." She said "Feel better". I went home and took another pill. Then I slept for three hours and had some seriously messed up dreams.

I woke up and sat in my chair with my eyes shut. My mind is a complete void. I'm moving very slowly. verrrrry slooooly. And suddenly the solution to my problem becomes clear! I need to go see "Hostel". Perhaps a horror flick will be just the thing to cure me. I take ANOTHER pill and head for the cinema. WHY DO I KEEP TAKING THESE PILLS?!?

The ticket seller said "Flahhb lahhb flur flom flaahhb?" and I just stared. Because I couldn't remember why I was there, mostly. Oh yeah. "One for Hostel".

Then I went to the snack bar. The SELF-SERVE snack bar. Which is confusing enough when I'm coherent. I somehow ended up with a hot dog and an ICEE. Mmmm. ICEE.

The trailers started, the sound immersed me, I sort of closed my eyes periodically, and suddenly everything was better. Except that the trailers that played before the feature all seemed like the most awesome movies ever. I'm pretty sure they weren't. One of them is from "WWE Films". Those guys need to hire a new sound mixer. That trailer has NO punch to it at all.

"Hostel" opens with "California Dreaming" playing in the background. About a minute into the intro, I realized I was singing along out loud. Oops.

Somewhere in the movie, characters in the movie take little white pills that look just like MY little white pills. And I'm thinking "NO! DON'T TAKE THE LITTLE WHITE PILLS!"

Then I went home and slept some more.

I'm pretty sure "Hostel" was awesome.

Thunderstorms in January

Place: Hardee's
Lunch: 1/3 lb Thickburger (no tomato), "Red Burrito" taco salad

Oh look! Hardee's has a new logo. THAT'LL solve all their problems...

The help here is overwhelmed. They can't keep up with the orders. They're reviewing and double-reviewing everything to make sure they're putting the right stuff on the right trays. They're confused. And there's probably four sets of customers in the whole place. Maybe three at the drive-thru...two of which haven't ordered. I count five working staffers, but two of them are on break.

Almost everybody who goes through the drive-thru while I'm there wants the same thing...the 2 for $3 quarter pound cheeseburger special advertised on big posters in the windows. They all get the same response from the help..."We're out of those." Some of them just leave, some of them order something else. And some who order drive off after waiting at the window for what I'm sure seemed like an eternity.

I suppose I could wonder aloud why a chain is offering a quarter-pound cheeseburger special when they don't offer quarter-pound burgers on the regular menu in the first place, but I won't.

When the food DID arrive, it was the correct order. The burger was hot and delicious. The taco salad could use some improvement. The taco meat was stale and dry. It was still pretty good, I guess. And the front line girls are SUPER nice and very apologetic to everybody about the wait. Most of the customers are visibly, if not verbally, annoyed. Except me. I have nothing going on today. I can take a nap. Do you have any pillows? Of course, not silly. You don't even have any quarter-pound burger patties.

You expect thunderstorms in the Midwest, but you expect them in the summer. At 11:30pm on January 1, we had a thunderstorm that rumbled for more than a half hour. Thunder, lightning, and rain. The first thunderstorm of 2006 happened on New Year's Day.

This is going to be one strange year.