I Know What She Did This Afternoon

This old dog learned a new trick today.

There I was, dropping in at my 44 oz. Diet Coke convenience store after school, because I deserved a treat after a particularly manic Monday. I try to limit my Diet Cokage to weekends. Really. But I threw caution to the wind and snagged one on the way home.

As I waited in line, a clerk-jumper darted from behind me to the next available register. Not cool. The dude I was behind was trying to figure out how to use his credit card to pay for a 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper (Really? REALLY? In a CONVENIENCE store?) and gas and two different kinds of cigarettes, which should not have been that hard, you know, since the basic idea is to hand it to the freakin' clerk to scan for you if technology is not your friend.

I stepped over behind Clerk Jumper. Figured she was gonna be fast, you know, what with being in such a hurry that she cut to the next line ahead of me in what could have been a fatal convenience store faux pas if I was a woman of hair-trigger temper and concealed weaponry. Do you know what Clerk Jumper bought? A 20 oz. bottle of Minute Maid pink lemonade. She asked the clerk for one of those cute little bottles of Jack Daniels stocked in a clear plastic high-rise of tiny alcoholic beverage apartments on the counter. It took her forever to come up with the cash. Like she was on a scavenger hunt in her own purse.

THEN she didn't have the grace to leave, but instead asked the clerk, "How much is ice?" The clerk must have known what she was dealing with. She did not quota a price on bagged ice, which was the first thought in my mind. She stated that ice was thirty-eight cents a cup. Clerk Jumper tilted her head to the side like a dog in a Victrola ad. "Thirty-eight cents? For a small cup?" The clerk assured her that it was thirty-eight cents for ANY size cup of ice. So back on the scavenger hunt she went.

Yeah. Guess what SHE was going to do as soon as she left The Voice of the Village? SHE WAS GOING TO DRINK AND DRIVE! She had her ingredients right there. I don't know why she didn't just swig out of the tiny bottle like those people on Intervention do when they're driving along being filmed and interviewed.

When I got back to the car and pointed out the scenario to The Pony, I said, rhetorically, or so I thought, "WHO drinks Jack Daniels with pink lemonade? That is just wrong!"

The Pony, apparently, has been checking out online bartending schools. "Well, Jack Daniels is whiskey. And whiskey goes with anything. It should go fine with pink lemonade."

"Uh, how do YOU know? Whiskey goes with Coke. Jack and Coke. Or maybe with 7-Up. Seagrams and Seven. It does NOT go with pink lemonade! You need something like vodka for that." Said I, the teetotaler who DID go to college.

When I got home, I consulted my BFF Google on the cocktail question. PINK LEMONADE AND WHISKEY IS REALLY A DRINK!!! And...it's called Pink Panties.

Let the record show that before I left the convenience store, I made sure that Clerk Jumper and her Pink Panties left ahead of me. I wanted to keep her in sight until I could ditch her.