A little blizzard was all I wanted

Jim can still not sit at the computer for more than a few moments at a time because of his knee. Something he said last night reminded me of a story about my sister and me and our adventures at drive-thru windows when we were in our 20's and 30's.

My sister and I used to live in the same apartment complex, so we would go do laundry together or go to Taco Bell or DQ for a treat pretty often. We also used to go to our parents house and visit with whomever might be there at the time. (There are 7 kids in our family, so you could pretty much always run into someone there, and my Dad was usually available for visiting in the evenings anyway.)

One summer evening I was really in the mood for a Blizzard from DQ, so we met at her little truck in the parking lot and we went to the DQ in our neighborhood, with plans to go see our Dad after.

We can talk. I mean, we can really keep on going, and it doesn't even have to be about anything. Those of you who have a really good sister know what I mean.

When we got to the DQ, the drive thru line snaked around the building and the end of it was right at the street where cars would enter the parking lot. That was okay -- we were used to that at our DQ. The inside was always packed in the evenings, too, so there was no way we were going in. And we always had talking to keep us occupied, so that's what we did.

We talked and waited, talked and waiting, inching up as we could.

Finally we realized we were one car away from the pick-up window. But we hadn't ordered! No one had asked for our order when we were at the speaker, but we didn't even notice with all the talking we were doing.

It had taken us about 1/2 hour to get to that point. There was no way we were going to wait another half hour.

Our little Blizzard-deprived pea brains engaged, and we decided to just pay for whatever was given to us at the window and we would just take whatever it was and go.

Straight-faced, we pulled up to the window and were given a total. We handed over the money, took the order, and left.

When we got to our parents house and could see what we had, we were very disappointed. The people in the car behind us had NO taste buds or imagination, it seemed. They had ordered a cup of ice water, some plain vanilla ice cream, and a Dilly Bar.

It was not exactly what we had in mind.

Dear persons in line for DQ: Please think of others when ordering. Be sure to get something good. Your taste buds -- or mine -- will thank you.