Month: October 2005

Very rarely in the course of history do we realize the significance of events as they occur. I think that one happened last Wednesday.

Of course, it happened once before.

Earlier in the summer heard about the Back to Basics Egg and Muffin Toaster, a device that magically creates Egg McMuffin type breakfast sandwiches in the comfort of your own home.

With the toaster, never again would one be slave to the clock and the arbitrary decisions of corporate America run amuck. Multi-millionaire CEOs and Hamburgerologists forcing their despotic will with a 10:30 cutoff time for breakfast. Who wants a hamburger at 10:35, anyway?

To free myself from such tyranny, last week I ordered the toaster, yesterday it came in the mail. Last night I went to Kroger to assemble all of the ingredients necessary for my favorite breakfast item:

I added the proper amount of water for steam production.

I added an egg. (You’re supposed to break the yolk, thanks. I know how to crack an egg.)

And the Canadian Bacon.

And of course, the English muffin.

The toaster is designed so that all of the ingredients come out at the same time, so I patiently waited.

Four minutes later, I had my McMuffin, minus the Mc part. Would you like fries with that?

The resulting sandwich does have the same character and gooeyness that makes the Egg McMuffin my favorite breakfast item. Now all I’ll need is the Back to Basics Home Angioplasty Kit.

I had some dental cleaning done this morning that required a local anesthesic. I was supposed to eat something beforehand but I forgot to eat, so after my appointment I was feeling a bit peckish. I decided to grab a milkshake. (Yeah, a milkshake after going to the dentist, that’s the kind of passive agressive action that I’ve come to expect from myself.) I pulled into the drive through at the Green Hills McDonald’s.

In front of me was a Kentucky blue early 90s vintage Ford F150 truck. I didn’t think anything of it until I saw the man behind the weel of the truck roll down his window to toss a paper towel on to the ground beside the truck. I was not the only one to notice this, but I was amazed at the brazen callousness that would make a person think that this was OK.

I thought for a moment on what I could do, and given that my mouth is already numb I figured that I would confront him about it. If he tried to deck me, I wouldn’t feel it anyway, so I felt I had nothing to lose.

I put my car in park, jumped out of the car and picked up the paper towel. He saw me do this, I made eye contact, and with all the brazenness I could muster, I threw the trash in the back of his truck. Several people saw me do this and they started to clap. He jumped out of his truck, reached back into the bed of the truck, fished out the paper towel and while staring at me, THREW IT BACK ON THE GROUND. Another man came over, picked up the paper towel again, took it inside to throw it away. He gave me a thumbs up.

Now I’m sure that this was’t the first time this man (he ordered a McChicken-no lettuce-and a small Coke has thrown trash from his car window, and I don’t expect my actions to have any influence on him ever doing again.

But if you see a man driving along in a blue Ford truck, Tennessee license plate NYE 753, don’t be suprised when you see a McChicken wrapper fly out the car window.

I sold 5 shirts with total sales of $83.95. As I said, I have matched that 100%, and made a donation to the Red Cross Katrina Relief in the amount of $167.90. I had orginally said that I would dontate the profits from the shirt sales, but since I forgot to assign any profit at Cafepress, I just did the whole amount.

Thanks everyone who bought a shirt!

No, I’m not one to join the exodus…you can’t get rid of me that easily.

It’s just been a busy month, starting off with 10 days spent in South Carolina dealing with my mother’s shoulder surgery. (Yes, she will be able to play the violin again.) I got back and had to hit the ground running, major work commitments lead to a several near 80 hour weeks. It’s fall which means football season, which means the little weekend I can carve out for myself is spent watching football. Then there was the whole Chief Justice hearings, another hurricane, another SCOTUS nomination, and that python that tried to swallow that alligator. So my time for blogging was reduced, to say the least.

I also met a girl, which is a story for another time.