My regular schedule was pre-empted by the Super Bowl yesterday. Most days I don't have lunch until around 4:00. Since I needed to have Hick's finger food supper ready by kickoff at 5:30, I was a bit discombobulated. I didn't want a full lunch, but I didn't want to go foodless until 5:30, either. I decided I'd grab some pretzel sticks from the 2-for-$4 menu at Dairy Queen when I was in town.
Of course I made my regular trip to town for a 44 oz Diet Coke! We had snow overnight, and the temperature was 17 degrees when I left home around 2:00. T-Hoe started up and ran like a champ. I wore my long-sleeved shirt under my jacket. Layering, you know! I hate driving with a full coat on. It's not worth all the trouble of climbing in and out, putting it on and taking it off. The jacket will do. It's not like I'm WALKING five miles to town!
Nobody was in the Gas Station Chicken Store. I had a chat with the clerk as I was running my magical elixir. As the bubbly dark nectar neared the top, I pulled my cup away from the spigot as usual. IT KEPT RUNNING! Oh, the Cokemanity!
"HEY! STOP! It's not shutting off!"
There's that slotted ledge the cups sit on while soda dispenses, and the tray underneath it with a drain hole. So it's not like I was flooding the store. Still, it was a waste of delicious Diet Coke! I didn't want to be the cause of it running out later in the week!
I set my cup down and reached behind the spigot to pull the lever forward for shut-off. In doing so, I hit the lever next to it, for REAL Coke, and some gushed out on my hand, and dripped over the edge onto the counter. But I stopped the flow of Diet Coke!
The clerk was on her way over to check the soda fountain as I wiped up the spillage with some napkins. I got it all clean. She tried the lever, and it seemed to be working just fine. I guess my poltergeist hitched a ride to town with me!
Anyhoo... mess cleaned up, I took my soda up front to pay, and cash in some winning scratchers for some that turned out to be non-winners. As I handed over my correct change, a dime stuck to my thumb. Oops! That's the REAL Coke interfering with my transaction.
On the way to T-Hoe, I could feel the stickiness on my right hand. I got the keys out and the door open, then parked my magical elixir in the cup holder and grabbed my traveling bottle of water. There I stood, on the parking lot of the Gas Station Chicken Store, at 17 degrees, pouring water over my hand to clean it.
Never a dull moment when you're along for a virtual ride with Val. It's all fun and games until somebody loses a pinky finger to frostbite. Which I haven't. Yet.
I have gotten my hand under the next faucet and it is all sweet and sticky. It is surprising your hand is not an icicle after water on your hand in that weather.
ReplyDeleteI drove with one hand, and held the fingercicles in front of the heater vent until my next stop!
DeleteWouldn't it be handier to keep a travel pack of wet wipes in the car so you could clean off your sticky fingers in relative comfort? No need to stand outside and freeze your knees off.
ReplyDeleteA travel pack of wet wipes would have been frozen from being in T-Hoe for the previous 24 hours. The temperature of my correct change, from the coin cup, was cold enough to burn my hand! Freezer-burn! The 10-minute drive to town did nothing to warm them up. It takes five minutes for the heater to start working.
DeleteMy knees are more worried about stepping on the running board to get back into T-Hoe. It gets a coating of ice, so that I have to use my long-armed ice scraper (handy for fishing coins out from under strange cars) to shave it off to be less slippery. I don't even think about needing to wash my hands.
I hate when that happens! And I have been know to rinse with water fromt he dispenser. This winter can skedaddle.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think of the dispenser! It wouldn't have helped, though, because I thought I had it all wiped off with the napkins I used to clean up the spill. I didn't notice until the dime stuck to my thumb. By then it was too late, as I was laden with 44 oz Diet Coke and scratchers.
DeleteYou are such a hoot. Virtual trips with Val the Victorian is always entertaining. Heck, you make getting a 44 oz. diet coke sounds adventurous.
ReplyDeleteI had another little adventure at the Gas Station Chicken Store today. I'm debating on whether to share it here. This blog writes itself!
Delete