The first step is admitting you have a problem

To the guy wearing the Asplundh tee shirt at Kwik Shop this morning: When you stepped on my foot at the fountain drink counter I smiled and said excuse me because it had to be my fault for putting my foot where you wanted to step. And when you stepped in front of me (again) to pay for your 14 breakfast and lunch items and add three different kinds of tobacco that the clerk couldn’t find one of them in the racks behind the register, and four different scratch lottery tickets, I patiently waited for you. (Let me insert here that you have no way to know that 6:30 a.m. is not a good time of day for me, especially before my first diet coke of the day, but I had the opportunity to suck a massive amount down before I got to the counter, so your life was not at any time in danger). After 8 minutes in line to pay for my $0.63 (and I had correct change) worth of life giving joy inducing headache counteracting caffeinated liquid refreshment, I headed toward the door, just to have you once again step on me as you decided you didn’t need to look at the sunglasses and you started walking before looking where you were going. Fortunately, the lid was on my drink tight and only a little spewed out the straw and onto my (white) dress as I squeezed the cup to keep from dropping it all over the floor.

Now that you have stepped in front of me and did manage to close the door on me on the way out as I was analyzing the damage to my dress we are on the sidewalk and you are walking much slower than I am, presumably admiring yourself in the plate glass windows that run the front of the store. I am still holding on to my “other cheek” mentality, because I do have a diet coke, and there are many people all over the country, maybe the world, who are doing without diet coke this morning. Poor souls, I can only imagine the sacrifice.

I finally ALMOST lost my “have a diet coke and a smile” smile when I realized that you were parked in the car next to me and you went to the passenger side and opened the passenger door to load your lunch box and let me wait (im?)patiently for you to do your thing until I could get in my car. If I had been wearing pants today I could have crawled through my passenger door and into the car and been on my way. Unfortunately, I was wearing a knee length dress and I didn’t want to flash the 12 cars at the gas pumps.

I hope your chocolate milk and lemon lime Gatorade or one of your three tobacco products help you to have the same kind of day my diet coke does for me.

The rest of the story…

I was 16 minutes late to work this morning, all for a diet coke. Then I got to my office and realized I had no money for the pop machine (for my second, third and possible fourth diet coke of the day) and there is no ATM in my new building. Wal-mart is only a 6 minute drive, one way, but there is parking and walking and shopping time, so it’s about a 30 minute round trip if I hustle, and that’s not till my lunch hour. The Pepsi machine takes debit cards, but the Coke machine doesn’t. I don’t know any of my co-workers well enough to bum money off of them (yet). Fortunately my brother works one building over, about 50 yards away and he bought me my second and third so I’m covered till I get off work.

“Hello, I’m Patsy, and I’m an addict”.


This post is dedicated to my fellow addicts I know and all those I don't know, Sheila, Cate, Desiree...