Tag Archives: Change

August 5, 2012 · 11:00 am

Change is in the Air

Nothing ever changes for the better
- Walter Mattau, Grumpier Old Men

Which includes, the seasons sometimes. The current season, Summer… it’s starting to wilt pretty badly.

The end is nigh. I can see it coming. Like a train in tunnel.

I’m in the last two days of my two week vacation. Two weeks of bachelor living while the family has been working in Hawaii. True, I’ve been working at my usual vocation, but they’ve been working on interpersonal relationships, and “close” living. I’ll take the office over that any day, especially given that I’ve come home every night to a quiet empty house. Fact is I only left the house twice to run errands for Mrs S.

I think I’d be perfectly happy observing the world from behind my windows. Too bad I consume so much shit and have such exquisite taste in cameras and computer equipment. But even there Amazon.com. Try to keep to a box a week.

I haven’t been as good a bachelor this time around as I have been in previous years. For most of the last two weeks my dinners have alternated between a bagel and peanut butter, a bagel and cream cheese, a bagel and Laughing Cow Cheese and then a bowl of Malt-O-Meal Faux Cheerio’s. I ran out of bagels.

I had a house guest one night, the brother of the bride for this weekends affair. I picked him up at the airport and he stayed at my place, given the hour that he arrived (1:00am) and the time we wanted leave (8:00am) didn’t make sense to take him home.

I made coffee in the morning and as he reached for the milk in the fridge.. the two fingers of milk left at the bottom of a gallon jug. The same jug that Mrs S and the little S’s used for their cereal right before they got in the car about a fortnight ago to go to the airport,  I had to suggest to the lad, much like Walter Mattau would, “you might want to smell that…”.  Been in there a while.

I’m kinda outta of uh.. well I’m out of food. Kind of general statement, but pretty accurate. Unless you want tomato paste or canned olives, your outta luck around here.

BTW, the only thing in the fridge; said milk, 8 bottles of coconut life water (love that stuff), a quivering mass of red liquid that used to be a tomato at one time, the remnants of it’s skin the only clue to it’s former life, a bowl with saran wrap covering something brown and green that I think is last weekend guac that no one ate, I’ll be depositing the entire bowl and contents into the trash soon,  a pile of Greek yogurt, and about 6 packs of shredded mexican cheese, all of them open and all of them missing several handfuls of content. Seems I open one before I look for another. I make quesadillas sort of alot. Tortilla, handful of cheese, and hot cast iron.  Haven’t had one in while though, ran out of tortillas about a week ago.

Other than that, not much else consumable around here. Even the butter was gone thanks to the dog swallowing a stick when it fell out of the holder last week. I didn’t notice until it was too late, about 11 nanoseconds is too late in that situation. He moves pretty darned fast when motivated by dairy products.

Piles of Stuff

One nice thing about living alone, stuff remains exactly where you put it. This is great when it comes to keys and wallets and leatherman tools. This is especially great when the place you leave it is the kitchen table. Nice to be surrounded by familiar things when you’re eating breakfast. Like the last 10 days of the newspaper. Mostly still in the original plastic bag. This is not so great when it comes to stuff like laundry. There’s no one here to pick up the clothes, wash them, and put them back in my drawers. I’ll have to ask Mrs S how that happens when she gets back.  Yeah, this blissful carefree lifestyle is fast coming to an end. Gang gets back Tuesday, but only for a while.

Going South

 

Come on baby drive South, with the one you love.
Windows open on the rest of the of the world, all the way to Dixieland
- John Hiatt

Thursday Team Sank-a-Ray pile in the car and following the lead of America’s least appreciated, and probably worst paid, great songwriter, John Hiatt we’re heading south.

Two days of driving to get us to the Great State of Alabama- my middle kid’s new home away from home. No fucking Kentucky weak ass transitional southern experience for him, no Texas like western south either, nope. M’boy is going deep into the heart of Dixie. Alabama boys. Auburn University here he comes. Lest you forget where we are, Auburn’s old union was a Confederate hospital back in the day.

And there he’ll stay, in the hands of the fine folks at Auburn University. Whirlwind trip for us, 36 hour driving for 36 hours on the ground.

Since I haven’t taken a vacation this summer I was thinking we were going to be there a week or so, maybe go to the Gulf. Well no luck. This summer at the office is the summer of no vacation, I can’t figure out how to get away more than a few days here and there and the gang coming back from Hawaii’s beaches don’t want to go to Alabama’s beaches for some reason.

And finally, the real issue… Auburn sent us a very nice invitation to a breakfast for the entire family on Sunday morning. A Good BYE and we mean it breakfast. I counted three places in 6 lines of verbiage where they essentially say, but in a nice way, GET LOST. Since it is Alabama I’m pretty sure they can shoot parents for less than helicoptering so.. we’re gone.

Going North

Oh, every year hath it’s winter
And every year hath it’s rain
But the day is always coming
When the birds go north again
- Ella Higginson

And before you know it, the oldest bird heads north, really far north. He’ll be spending the next 4 months way up in the northern environs of British Columbia where he’ll be part of a team of Canadian and British researchers evaluating ground water and it’s impact on salmon populations. Now, the Horsefly River doesn’t sound like a place I want to go, but looking at the pictures online of some of the fish the folks at the lodges up there are catching I’m inclined to be impressed. Nice to see him doing something he loves. Not as nice to know he wants to leave 3 weeks early. I’ve heard he wants to go back to Houghton when he gets home from taking his Brother to Auburn. He really wants to see Auburn. He also wants to go home, which isn’t where home once was for him.

“why?” I asked my wife, “would he want to go back up there.. he’s always complaining that it’s kind of slow.” She responded “Used to be slow, I think it’s not as slow now, he’s got someone to do things with these days and he, might be a she.”

Minor tectonic adjustment needed in my world.

*sigh*. “But I’ve seen him for three days summer” I started to complain, and I caught myself. Screw it, I don’t want to be the buzzkill on this deal. One going North, one going South and one still to young to decide. Summer 12 moves to Autumn and change is afoot.

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes

Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
- David Bowie

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June 15, 2012 · 2:05 pm

The Lock Keeper and the Sailor

From Stan Rogers, the great Canadian singer-songwriter:

You say, “Well-met again, Lock-keeper!
We’re laden even deeper that the time before,
Oriental oils and tea brought down from Singapore.”
As we wait for my lock to cycle
I say, “My wife has given me a son.”
“A son!” you cry, “Is that all that you’ve done?”

She wears bougainvillea blossoms.
You pluck ‘em from her hair and toss ‘em in the tide,
Sweep her in your arms and carry her inside.
Her sighs catch on your shoulder;
Her moonlit eyes grow bold and wiser through her tears
And I say, “How could you stand to leave her for a year?”

“Then come with me,” you say, “to where the Southern Cross
Rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Come with me!” you cry,
“Each day you tend this lock, you’re one day older,
While your blood grows colder.”

But that anchor chain’s a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn’t trade your life for one hour of home.

Sure I’m stuck here on the Seaway
While you compensate for leeway through the Trades;
And you shoot the stars to see the miles you’ve made.
And you laugh at hearts you’ve riven,
But which of these has given us more love or life:
You, your tropic maids, or me, my wife.

“Then come with me,” you say, “to where the Southern Cross
Rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Ah come with me!” you cry,
“Each day you tend this lock, you’re one day older,
While your blood grows colder.”

But that anchor chain’s a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn’t trade your life for one hour of home.
Ah, your anchor chain’s a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn’t trade your whole life for one hour of home.

It seems regardless of if I want to or not, that I’m entering into a period of forced reflection as the anniversaries of events in my life begin to accumulate impressive numbers behind them. This week in particular one came up and passed, my 25th anniversary at the business of lock keeping.

Hang up the phone mother, Metaphor I haven’t made a career change.

I would defy anyone to pass a quarter century milestone without taking at least a moment to reflect and consider.

-       Did I make the right choices in life?

-       Am I happy where I am?

-       What could have been?

I know, for the regular readers this is getting a bit tiresome, the verbose fat man is pontificating on life again and frankly, it’s a bit droll. I hear ya, I’d rather read about toilet humor and dumb things my kids say, but this is important to me. Which, in this space, is uh, as they say, all that matters..

Now that I’ve weeded out the shallow readers, indulge me a bit.

The circumstances my introspective emotional rent here has to do this the above song, a Stan Rogers beauty which was also recorded by my hero Gordon Bok on one of his many folk albums with nautical bents. The song just happened to come up on my iPod this week. Coincidence? Song hasn’t come up in 3 or 4 years near as I can remember, but now on my 25th anniversary, there it was.

I shared it with a few friends and they found expressed some concern about my mental health. Not to worry. I don’t see this is a depressing ode to lost opportunity.

I see it as a legitimate conversation between two approaches to life. A conversation that especially resonates for me because I have been a lock keeper for an awfully long time.

My Father in Law, he was clearly a sailor. Risk, travel for weeks at a time… and it’s poignant to point out that the only an only thing that he ever mentioned to me, when it came to telling me  about things he was disappointed about, was that I was safe. I was always on the seaway, and that I will never see the Southern Cross, a constellation he pursued with great vigor.

Safe.

I have three kids who are in various stages of moving on in their lives to the point where the choices they make will set them on the path of being a a sailor or lock keeper. My inclination and what I’ve found myself telling them is; “don’t be like me, get out there and change the world.”

Not without a bit of mist in my eyes to be honest.

But being Jewish and thus predisposed to turn text and ideas in my head around and around, a metaphor for the scrolls we read from, same scrolls, year after year, same words with unlimited lessons,  I realize that my advice of not being like me may not have been correct.

My Father in Law, the last few years or so especially, had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my kids, one on one. He got to see his oldest Grandson become a scientist in a fast moving and exiting field. He saw his second grandson embrace an in interest in biotech research and, once the shock of actually going to school in Alabama wore off, was extremely proud of the man he was becoming. And he enjoyed his granddaughter, especially her artistic gifts, his office had pieces of work carefully framed and on display. And in those years he made a point of pulling me aside from time to time and telling me “you really have a great family, you’ve done a terrific job”. Which makes me a little misty now thinking about it to be honest.

But, like every one I can’t help but wonder: The grass is always greener.. A truism, which along with no good deed unpunished I have yet to see proven wrong.. but that’s a different blog.

Thinking about that stupid song-

And I wouldn’t trade your whole life for one hour of home.

I’ve had about a half dozen opportunities over the years to make a career change, go into consulting, go into pre-sales, work in the field.. all of which would get me off the seaway and onto the deck of a fast moving ship flying through the open water.

These jobs would have let me take advantage of my intellect and keep me at what I love to do best, THINK.. but all of them involved travel, more travel that I was interested in doing.

And I like what I do, the only advantage consulting would have provided might have been more money and a bigger title and maybe… working for myself. Which exactly how I always envisioned myself shooting the stars and navigating the trades. But again, self employment; not so safe.

So, I will not see the Southern Cross.

And to be honest I couldn’t stand to leave my wife for year, a day or two here and there we can talk, but to not have her there day after day, supporting and nurturing with a mere presence.. would be a dark existence.

I’d like to complain more, it’s fun and makes good bar talk, but really I’ve had the best of both worlds standing on seaway cycling ships through locks.  And when I ask myself; what has given me the my love of life, I have to say my wife.

Which is yet another G-damned anniversary on the way where I’m going to have to whip out that stupid emotional snot rag and do this all over again…

Stupid G-d damn songs.

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November 5, 2011 · 6:15 pm

Install Day T+15

The secret about our change to cable is out in the open now. Comedy of errors really, but Mrs S, being really intuitive and having an excellent grasp of the obvious sniffed out my little conspiracy.

Here’s a summary of the affair, which I’ve learned, in causal conversation with coworkers and friends is not all that extraordinary.

Cable Installation day 1- Appointment made to transition Team Sankary from 4 years of Dish Network to a new technology where the world comes to our house via a small buried wire. Note, not a fiber optic cable, and I asked, rather via  a solid tried and true copper wire. Coaxial thing, early 20th century technology.  If it worked on Battleship Missouri, it’ll work for me.  BTW, the distance from the cable box to my house, about the same as the length of the Mighty Moe.. but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Day 1, cable man arrives at the door, very nice fellow, asked if he 1) he could look around the house and 2) if I could un-release the corgi for a while, he was gnawing on the poor mans heel. Sure can and sure can. 3 minutes later he was back at door. Have you ever had cable here? Yes back in 199somthing. Well sir, there is no wire to the house, we’ll have to put in a order to run a line for the box over there, pointing down the street, to here, pointing to my house.

New appointment for burying cable, Day 1+11 days.

In the mean time, appointment for the phone work to be done is Day 1+7 days. That appointment will have to be moved out to Day 1+15 days.

I’m starting to need a Gant chart to keep this straight.

Two days prior to the Day 1+7 appointment, which was supposed to cancelled, I get a call confirming that the guys will be there to install cable and phone in two days. “Ma’am” I say, “He can’t install the cable, there’s no line buried to bring the signal the house.” I think I understand cable enough to know that sans wire, no tv. Or phone, not sure on the internets thing, that’s newer technology than I, it’s all so magical you know.

The lady on the phone, in a gentle easy to understand voice, carefully explained to me that in fact, it wouldn’t be a problem because they would leave the cable on top of the ground.. to be buried later. This, she told me, was how the always did it..

No.

I explained that if they did this they would be laying cable across three of my neighbors driveways. You can’t really do that I told her. “Sir, please, I’m a cable professional. You have a line running to your house that is actually under the ground. You can’t see it but it’s there.. and we’ll use that one.”

“But they told me..”

“Sir, please. Don’t worry about this, we know what we’re doing”

Sometimes you have to let people learn shit on their own.

“K”.

But it didn’t feel good. Half an hour later, after pacing and washing my hands 76 times (my stress response) I uh.. called back. Went right to level 2. Explained that I was confused about an appointment. The nice lady on the other end was trying to figure out which one. “I have a Gant chart I can email you if that helps?” She didn’t want it.

I explained that I was under the impression that a technician would be coming to the house in 2 days to install my cable.” “affirmative” she said. I also explained why I thought he or she wouldn’t be able to do that. “No wire” I said. Well, apparently, like the doctors office, when you talk to a cable dude, they put notes in your file. “I see that you’ve called about this before and Mr. Sankary, I want you to please rest easy knowing that we, the cable company, know what we’re doing. It will be fine, please find something to distract yourself with.”

“K”.

Seriously. Well, the spice rack need alphabetizing I’ll go busy myself with that.

Monday morning, 0800. New cable man is at the door, corgi gnawing on this heel, smiling. He’s here to install cable. “Good luck” I told him.. 18 seconds later he’s back at the door. “We can’t put this in, you don’t have a wire to the house, I’m sorry. We’ll have to reschedule.”

Imagine that.  I had to go wash my hands again, and rock myself calm in the corner for 20 minutes.

“Thank you, here’s a cup of coffee, enjoy your free day.” Told the nice man.. “and here lemmie get my dog please.”

I called the cable company. Got a different person. Dude this time. “heres the deal… “ and I explained why I was a little tweaked. First thing out of his mouth; “They should have cancelled the appointments, you can’t have cable with out a wire”.

Sweet relief, I thought I’d gone insane.

And.. “We can’t leave a cable across a driveway, we have to bore under it.. we don’t work like that”. Love it when things all come together. Had’ta ask though, “why would two of your colleagues tell me that uh..” “well, Mr Sankary, I’m quite sorry I see in your file that you were in fact given bad information. On behalf of the entire Cable  family let me offer our apologies and I’m going to remove the charge for the installation.” It was free anyway, but uh.. it’s a nice gesture.

“well Mr. Sankary, the fellows who are going to run your line from the box to the house, will be there on Day 1+13 days.” Aka Friday.

Ok. I spent the next few minutes updating my Gant Chart.  The cable to house task went to 14 days, this changed the actual install day from milestone to a can not start before dependency. This in turn recalculated final bill date and amount from Dish and Frontier day and changed my cable nirvana date to be 18 days later than the original day, but still before Thanksgiving.

By now Mrs S is starting to ask a lot of very pointed questions about just what the hell is going on around here. The standard “nothing”, ain’t gonna cut it. And then she asked “So, what’re they doing out side right now?”. HUH? Stumped I looked outside.. there I saw two guys with landmine equipment, a big trencher, some kind of boring thing and miles of brand new, bright orange copper cable.

It’s the guys who are running the cable from the box to the house. They’re here 4 days early, and.. they probably passed the cable installer on their way down the court.

Hell with the hands, I had to take a whole shower. Called my guy back. “Um, the dudes who are supposed to be here Friday, are here now.” Cable man response “OK.” “Left hand, right hand.. any communication there?” “Mr Sankary I can see where this might be confusing to you..” as I’m erasing and crossing stuff of my Gant chart, “ But I assure you we know what’s going on.”

Not believing it.

“Seriously” I asked.. “They’re not supposed to be here until Friday”. “No Mr Sankary, what I meant by Friday was that they can come any time, as long as it’s before Friday.”

Bazinga.

“OK, so I have to change the cable bury task from a milestone to a Complete Before dependency which means the install date could be adjusted to a range that goes out another 5 days, which means.. I got a 10 day window of never knowing when some dude is going to come to the house and wanna install cable.” “no Mr Sankary, the cable install date is a hard date, It’s Day1+7+7  now, which accounts for the miscommunication on our part, the additional +7 is for the rescheduled time. Just change the bury task and move install milestone and you’ll be fine.”

Need a new sheet of paper now.

I’m seriously running out of handsoap, you just can’t change stuff on a compulsive old fat guy with ADD, I DON’T FEEL SAFE ANYMORE.

Ok, so now my Gant chart is starting look more like the Seldon Plan from Asimov’s Foundation series. And this is after the Mule comes along and screws up the future. Bottom line, I have 10 more days of Dish and Frontier than I expected and uh..

BTW, same day, for the first time in 5 years I get a note from DISH thanking me for being a “great customer”. Yeah.. $97 a month to watch Serie A games live from Italy. And the BYU channel. I’m blessed. Although Juventus/Inter-Milan was a pretty good match, but I’m not really interested in watching President Monson’s bi-annual update live from Salt Lake City. But I could, I pay for it.

Mrs S patted my hand and helped me with my chakra for a while and really, I started to feel better. “Now, honey” she said in way that foreshadows ill. “Uh. I don’t think we could get cable today anyway.”

Now she’s turning on me… “WHA… why not”. “Have you turned on the TV?” she asked.

I kinda knew this was coming. For the last few weeks we’ve had a little situation over here where the only way to turn on the TV is to.. unplug it, replug it back in, and then it works. On the Magnavox website I learned that almost every set like ours, does the same thing until it finally dies. Something about a power board.

Had to be today.

“Honey” she said “Call Magnavox and see if there hasn’t been a recall”. OK.. Found the manual, called the 800 number, had my model and serial number in hand, negotiated through the menu’s and got a live person, someone named Abraham, who did NOT sound like they were from Illinois. Or Kentucky. No, not even within 10,000 miles of either place. “Hello, thank you for calling Funai’s service hotline, your satisfaction is our goal. Can I have your model number please.” I complied. “Ohhh I’m so sorry we don’t support that model, let me please give you the Magnavox service number.” “Uh what if I told you that you would not meet your goal to make me satisfied by sluffing me off to another number?”

“Are you ready sir?”

Called Magnavox. Menu. Are you calling about a television, press one. I did. Please enter your model number. I did. Wait. Wait. Wait. “We do not offer live support for that model, please go to Magnavox.com and review our documentation to troubleshoot your set.”

Which is explains why Mrs S found me, in the fetal position, on the bathroom floor, a bar of Irish Spring squeezed into greenish soap turd, mumbling incoherently.

Good news is, she got the reprieve she was looking for to catch up on her shows she’d DVR’d during the couple months she was in California.

Now, if someone can explain the 45 feet of used coax cable in my garage that looks like it was cut with a pair of scissors…

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October 21, 2011 · 2:18 pm

War Eagle!

War Eagle everyone.

If you happen to see the middle kid it would be entirely appropriate that you greet him with War Eagle, the official greeting for members of the University of Auburn family, also happens to to be the rally call for the schools athletic teams.

All this means good news at the Casa this week, middle kid has been accepted to Auburn University. We thought we’d wait to see where else he got accepted before we commit, to make sure he selects the school that’s best for him. The kiddo however, was waiting to see if he got accepted to Auburn to see if he had to apply anywhere else. Not exactly my advice to be totally honest. But.. it worked out for him. He applied for early admission. The university web site said early admission kids would notified between October 15 and February 1st.

I explained to him that the letter would probably come later than sooner, that’s kinda how this stuff works, and that he should buckle down and work up the essay he needed for some of his other choices; Oregon, Cal, Minnesota, and St. Thomas. I think Illinois was on that list at one point as well. Write up the essay dude, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

The letter came October 17. Way to go Auburn, way to screwup my plans. Still you want to make sure dude, lets follow up on the other schools and make certain you have some choices, you want to make choices. He had me send in the deposit October 18th.

So, basically it’s a done deal. Auburn here we come, or rather “he” comes, I won’t be going down except to drop him off, and if it works out, maybe to catch a football game at some point. That’s a long drive. But to his credit there is a method to his madness, apparently he gets priority for housing based on how early you begin enrollment. I can’t imagine there is anyone earlier than our guy, I’m thinking he’ll get the penthouse room on the Quad.. something called the Quad being his choice.

So as of this time next year, we’ll have one kid in Michigan, one kid in Alabama and one kid upstairs on an iPad.

Before we look forward to reuniting the family here in St. Paul, oldest kid is starting to look at Grad Schools. Grad School!! Kid has good taste believe me, but he also has the grades to back up his dream, which at this point is Leland Sanford Junior University in Palo Alto California. That Stanford. Second choice BTW, The Colorado School of Mines in Golden Colorado followed by the University of California in Berkeley California.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about all these schools, The mean distance between Minneapolis Minnesota and all of these places, about 12oo miles. In other words, the long term prognosis for Sankary kids in Minnesota is poor. I don’t know what the future looks like, Mrs S and I staying here and Minnesota being the central point for family visits and summers at the lake? Will the kids wind up somewhere near each other and we go there, will Mrs S’s disdain for Winter finally predicate a move to warmer climes, will the lure of California and family draw us back, the future is not clear at the moment.

I’m seeing change in the wind folks, the future will be exciting, hopefully not too exciting, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Or something like that.

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July 19, 2010 · 6:00 am

Sonic Confusion

It’s no wonder the world confuses me.

I took the family down to see the Milk Carton Boat Races at Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis this afternoon. Neat little festival, they race a bunch of boats made out of milk cartons. The only rule on most of them, they have to have at least 5 people crew. The winner BTW, a 9 person canoe that had to be 25 feet long. They’d been working on that boat for a long long time. I know this because about the middle of the boat, there were several egg nog cartons in the bulkhead. So, at least Christmas.

“say, that’s good reasoning Sank, you can’t be that stupid”.

It’s not me.. it’s the people I hang out with. I call them family. They.. make me stupid. For one thing, they don’t perform like they’re supposed too. Along with the boat races they had sand castles and lots of booths of people showing off stuff, including.. Char-Broiler the BBQ people. I love swag and I sure need a new grill. All you had to do to win a new infrared grill, which I not exactly sure what that means, was stand in line for 20 minutes, play beanbags, get one in the hole and then you got to spin a wheel for a price and submit your name. Easy. Easy for my daughter the proclaimed state bean bag champion. So proclaimed by none other than Bill Roehl, bean bag guy who’s had his ass kicked with some regularity by my precious little sweetie.

Well, wouldn’t you know.. after I stand in line.. rotten kid wouldn’t do it. WOULD NOT DO IT. And, because she all cute’n’stuff, she’d get a six foot lead. If they don’t perform for you I don’t know why you even bother to have them. Instead I had to go to a computer, stand behind people who insisted on putting their first and last names into the space called “Email” and fill out a spam deal to try to win a grill.

Dumb.

After the races the kids, who had whined the entire day and completely killed any buzz I had that about this family ever doing anything fun ever again, wanted to go to Sonic. I’ve never been to a Sonic, they’re new here. I didn’t realize that customers could not actually “enter” a Sonic. We have to either park outside or sit on their patio. Saves on cleaning I guess. Interesting that they hire ex-hockey players, something this town is loaded with, to deliver order on roller blades. Not sure what they’re going to do in the Winter, can’t blade in the snow. Maybe they’ll Zamboni the parking lot and call it a rink. First person to get out their car and slip on the ice can be then new franchise owner after the lawsuit. I’l have to watch the weather for that.

As I pulled up to the place I asked the family what they wanted. I like doing that because they all answer at the same time. Mrs S, being the one I’m most afraid off, I’m sure to hear her order first. Cherry Limeaide  No ICE. Red wanted a banana shake.. gross. Girl was asleep, she somehow told my wife she wanted a lemon freeze. Telepathy, comes with estrogen I guess.

Order amout.. $4.25. I pulled to the window and gave the lady a $10.00. She handed me back $2.25 in change and shut the window. When she came back to hand up our drink I explained that the change she gave me was wrong. “Wha’dyagiveme?” “a Ten”.. “Oh baby, this is right I just need to give you another $3.00..” “$3.50” “yeah that’s right too”.

I wasn’t aware math had more than one right answer and I really wasn’t sure how they define “right” at Sonic. Does right mean any value less than the amount I was supposed to get, so you can give me the rest and make it “right?”

About then Mrs. S pipped up.. “”There’s no ice in my drink.” I’m 100% sure that you told me to order no ice. “I did, but when you order no ice at Sonic, they put a little ice in your bevvie, if you don’t ask for no ice they put to much in.” “why don’t you ask for a little ice..” “I did, I said no ice”.

No wonder I’m confused.

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