I tend to become slightly obsessed about little things. For example, I used to work with a woman who put a period at the end of her signature. She’d sign her name and then plop a dot at the end of it. Since we all had to sign the same logs day after day, I’d see her signature there with that annoying plop of punctuation at the end of it. It drove me crazy. I pointed out to her that her name is not a sentence. She told me I was right and she would change her way.
She started signing the log with just her initials, even though it said “Full Name” at the top of the column. The plop of a period remained.
I ended up quitting that job for something better: a place without rampant abuse of punctuation.
I can be a little obsessive.
McDonalds is running a promotion in where you get a free Coke glass when you buy a large value meal. The glasses come in green, blue, purple, brown and clear. I love these glasses because they have some heft to them and I like the way they feel in my hand. Now they’re not as good as the lead painted glasses we got back in the 70s from Carrols, those glasses you could literally die for if you licked them hard enough but how they’ve become collector’s items.
I don’t know that the McDonalds glasses will become collector’s items but I’m determined to stock our cupboard with at least two of each color variation. Always trying to find a better body, I have been avoiding large value meals, or value meals of any type for that matter, but I scarfed one down on Saturday night and scored a glass. I was rewarded with my first purple one.
On Sunday we stopped at a McDonalds for a quick drink. I asked the person at the counter if I could just buy a glass and she answered in the affirmative. But they were out of clear ones (the only one I really needed), so I added another blue glass to the collection.
Today I stopped at the McDonalds near work for my lunchtime iced tea and an absolutely horrible thing happened. They are not participating in this Coca-Cola glass promotion.
I almost jumped up on the counter and started screaming like a wild man. Here I was, buried in a line of people that seem shocked when given the total of their order to the point that they’re overwhelmed by the concept of having their money out of their pocket ahead of time and there is no promised glass at the end of monotony of this ordering process. What the hell is wrong with these people? Do they not watch their own, never ending commercials on television? Do they not realize that not only will I soon have a complete set of glasses for a dinner party of 16? Do they not understand that these glasses look good in all situations, whether in a formal dining room or in the room at the ass end of a mobile home?
I was going to say something snappy and witty to the disinterested counter person but I decided not to and instead of I gave the change she threw at me to the Ronald McDonald House fund.
Instead I just glared at her.
