I make myself one cup of coffee five days a week. Not “a coffee” - a mug of Yuban. I don’t drink lattes or anything that ends in “ppucino.” Sodas only at PTO meetings, once a month. It’s not that I’m a Thou Shalt Not purist, because I eat and drink other crap; I’m just too cheap to pay for that stuff, and I know how bad all of those things are for me. Besides, if I’m gonna shell out bucks for beverages I could approximate in my own home, it had better be alcohol in a fancy setting.
But.
Once a year, in early spring, I take the drive of shame to the McDonalds drive-up window and order this.
A shamrock shake - or, as I prefer to think of it, the Shamerock Shake. Unmistakably green and fluffy in a clear cup - when did THAT happen? - so I can’t pretend it’s an iced tea, to my great shame.
There is nothing about this drink I can defend. Not its ingredients, its purveyor, and certainly not its nutritional value. But I still want one. One.
You might think that with a chip on my shoulder this big I could handle the subsequent walk of shame from my car to the door of my office, but you’d be wrong, because there next to my parking space was a huge pickup, backed into the space, with a man and woman inside. The engine was running. I was suddenly self-conscious of my Shamerock Shake. What if they see me? They’ll KNOW. I should have been wondering why a couple were idling their pickup in the parking lot, watching the doors of the building, and I am wondering that now, but then? Only concerned with juggling my keys and papers and purse and this fluffy green nonsense.
Did you know that when a thick green shake tips over in a purse, some actual liquid seeps out? I didn’t either.
I made it into the building, where I enjoyed my shake, alone, feeling a mixture of guilt and satisfaction. Then I cleaned my purse.
It’s a good thing I won’t eat McRib sandwiches. My purse would not survive.
Recent Comments