On my way to work on Tuesday, I stopped at McDonald’s to buy a sweet tea for the road. Say what you will about Mickey D’s, but they serve a damn good southern-style sweet tea. It’s tasty, comes in an enormous cup that almost requires two hands, and only costs a dollar. Oh, it’s perfectly executed.
I had a 36 mile trip to work, and 45 minutes to play with. But the long-ass line at the drive-thru looked to be problematic. I could feel in my bones that the fast-food math was not on my side. If I committed to that creeping queue, I’d almost certainly be late. So, I parked and went inside.
There was only a mother and her portly son at the counter, which was a relief. You never know what you’re getting yourself into there, but everything looked to be wide-open.
I took my place behind the pair, and heard the mother order something that sounded like “frappe.” What in the finger-snapping hell? Is that a drink, or something to do with pastry? I wasn’t sure, but didn’t like how this thing was shaking out. This is fast food, goddammit, not a sidewalk café in Paris.
And sure enough, the cashier walked away and started messing around with a blender, or somesuch. It’s McDonald’s! There shouldn’t be any blenders!! It was a long drawn-out affair. And I was standing there with $1.06 clutched in my fully-prepared hand, desperately watching her perform a science experiment on the other side of the room. “Is a freaking Coke not good enough for you, you pampered hog??” I wanted to holler at the person who’d just ruined my life.
I began huffing and puffing, and sighing theatrically, hoping this might cause one of the other employees to step to the plate. There were six or eight fully-uniformed people milling around back there — not one of them doing anything, as far as I could tell. But nobody would answer my call.
Then a guy behind me started bitching. “SO THIS IS ALLEGEDLY A FAST FOOD RESTAURANT, HUH?” he asked me, loud enough to be heard in the parking lot. “I DON’T SEE ANYTHING MOVING TOO FAST AROUND HERE, DO YOU? WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GIRL?”
“Aw, she’s all the way over there messing around with some idiotic drink,” I told him, forgetting that the woman who’d ordered it was standing right there. She turned around and shot me a dirty look, and I felt a little embarrassed.
“SO THEY ONLY HAVE ONE REGISTER OPEN? WITH ALL THESE PEOPLE HERE??” the guy screamed at me. “WHO’S RUNNING THIS PLACE, ELMER FUDD??”
I liked his enthusiasm, but ‘Elmer Fudd’ was a disappointment. It felt like he was capable of so much more.
But it did the trick. A clearly irritated woman of size sauntered up to the cash register and said, “Help who’s next?” She apparently couldn’t muster enough energy to say all of the words, so she just went with the minimum.
I got my giant iced tea, nodded goodbye to my brother in passive-aggressive complaining, and tore ass out of there. I was now pushing it, and it was a 50/50 chance I’d be late. I don’t like to be late… It’s one of my “things.” I have many “things.”
I merged onto I-81, and began cruising southward at 80 mph. And taking big slugs off that bunker-buster of tea… I put Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk into the CD player (what of it?), and continued swigging my diabetes water while constantly checking the clock.
I have this formula, where I calculate one mile as one minute. And if everything goes well, I can shave several minutes off my estimated arrival time, while in transit. It looked like I would be parking my car with three or four minutes to spare. I was in good shape, according to my calculations.
But then tragedy struck.
There was some sort of giant vehicle sporting tires that were fifteen feet tall. It was too wide for one lane of the interstate, and was moving at roughly 7 mph. I almost rammed the guy in front of me, who had to slam on his brakes to avoid ramming the person in front of him. What the crap, man? Where did this ludicrous vehicle come from? Had it just entered the highway? We were right there, behind it. There was no long line of traffic or anything.
We couldn’t get around the thing, and were creeping down the road at a ridiculously slow speed. I think a three-legged dog passed me on the right. This was throwing my formula into a state of disarray, and now anything was possible. I might have uttered a few of the bad words.
Then I realized I had to pee. Some of that tea had already worked its way through my organs and whatnot, and was wanting out. And I was stuck behind the freaking moon rover on Interstate 81.
I pulled into a parking space at 2:58, and when I jumped out from behind the wheel there was an audible sloshing sound in my gut. It was like when you’re carrying a bucket of water around a corner. I felt like my stomach was distended, and there was a great pressure against my intestines. I probably looked like Herman Munster walking across the parking lot.
And when I logged onto my computer (how they keep track of us), it was… 3:01. Dammit! I was late. I hate being late.
I made an angry beeline to the bathroom, with a fire burning inside me. And I urinated so long it probably surpassed the playing time of the original studio version of “Free Bird.” I mean it was a full-blown pissathon.
After it finally came to an end, I returned to my desk and realized my heart was racing and I was all speeded-up. All that caffeine and sugar had me going. Someone asked me a question, and it felt like I was chattering like a cocaine freak. What was going on?? I’d had the McDonald’s sweet tea plenty of times before with no problems.
Then I had to pee again, and again, and again. I just kept on peein’, for a couple of hours. And even though I was conscious of it, I couldn’t stop myself from being way too animated in my speech. I was waving my hands around and using novelty voices… What was happening to me? I was like Sid Caesar all of sudden.
I went back to my desk, and muttered: “You’ve got to maintain… Get a hold of yourself, man.” Then I had to pee again, and briefly considered attempting a cartwheel on my way to the bathroom. For a few seconds that actually seemed like an attractive course of action. But I was able to tamp down my urges.
I try to avoid making grand proclamations, but I don’t think I’ll be stopping for sweet tea on my way to work anymore. A few more episodes like that one, and I’ll end up in rehab… It starts at McDonald’s and ends at the BFC.
Good god!
This update should be enshrined! Thank you, Jeff. I laffed out loud.
Excellent update, I think your still speeded up today!
Had to pass this one on to the missus. She’s a Mickey D’s Sweet Tea junkie. We can’t drive past the golden arches without having to stop for one.
I can relate. I usually drink two pots of coffee a day. One before I drive on the I-75 death corridor and one after lunch. For a place that employs 80 people, four bathrooms (two male, two female) it doesn’t seem like enough. All of the drunken engineers and secretaries seem to come back from lunch when I do and it leaves me with the choice of pissing in the sink or outside where there are no windows. In the early morning, the same engineers seem to be doing all their personal shit in the bathrooms, like a full stand up wash or brushing and putting on deo. I hate that shit.
I don’t mind going into the McDonald’s here instead of the drive thru, but the problem is they seem to put the only English speaking employee on the drive thru. I get shit handed to me in the inside line that I would not order in a million years.
Cartwheels in the officeplace are not allowed.
For future reference, yell “comida RAPIDA!” when the non-English speakers are dragging ass. If that doesn’t work, try “IMIGRA!”
..de-de mao!! …de-de mao!!!…also works for other non Englanders. Give that a try sometime.
“de-de mao!! …de-de mao!!!”
Does that have something to do with the Mayans? I hope not. I don’t know how they’re going to be able to show their fucking faces in 2013, those Mayans.
I never saw Elmer Fudd as managment material either.
Not to be alarmist but frequent urination actually is a sign of diabetes. Were you constantly thirsty as well?
I drank a gallon of iced tea, and my stomach was like Lake Superior.
Don’t panic. While frequent urination is a sign of diabetes, as you said, you drank a huge amount of caffinated beverage.
One of the things that caffine does when the body digests it is to break down into a substance called norpeinephrine.
Norepinephrine is a very, very powerful vasoconstrictor, which means that it raises your blood pressure.
Higher blood pressure sends more blood to your kidneys, thus doing more filtering and (in conjuction with stretch receptors in the heart telling your brain to dump fluid to lower your blood pressure) you can tend to pee a lot.
But it’s still a good idea to get an annual physical and let your doctor run whatver blood tests and what not that he or she feels is appropriate.
If anyone out there is concerned about their health I would urge them to seek care from a qualified medical provider.
This ends the public service message.
Right on Jorge. I’m no sugar apologist though, that shit is white death. My extreme opinion on this matter is well documented.
I’ll be laughing over this post for days! Great one!
And I-81 is hell. Hate traveling it and that only happens twice a year. You deserve a medal.
Once you drain your cup of tea, do you not feel comfortable replacing it with pee? (being stuck in traffic and all)
I have done that. However, it is amazing that I can drink 16 ounces of something then pee twice that 15 minutes later. I should always ask for an extra cup.
Excellent stuff. I keep on coming back for more!
Dunno, Jeff, “Elmer Fudd” was pretty good – made me laugh. Maybe that should have been the QotD – What’s the funniest reference the man could have made?
He could have said, “Ben Stein on a Goddamn Vicodin drip?” I think that’s pretty funny.
I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Gomer Pyle’ or ‘Ernest P. Worrell’ running the show!
“You’ve got to maintain… Get a hold of yourself, man.”
I know the feeling. I tried to go Christmas shopping one night at a mall in Anchorage after a day of eating mushrooms.
I suggest getting some Depends. Since you’re losing weight you’ll have room under your fat-man pants. Pee whenever, wherever you like. Remember how good it felt to pee your pants when you were a little kid? Life is a cycle and we can start peeing in our pants again if we want.
That was one damn funny update!
I like buying the giant jug ‘o tea and bringing it home. It lasts a few days and it’s cheaper andeasier than making my own.
It could be a tumor.
Has anyone else has such a longpiss you had to shift your feet to get a better stance?
I’ve gone so far as to start leaning up against a wall and being aggeravated about how long it takes to finish the piss.
By the end of some pissathons I’m irritated that it has taken so long. I mean come on, I hate standing at the urinal for 5 or 6 minutes, that shit shouldn’t be necessary.
You might have a prostate issue. Or perhaps you need urethra enlargement surgery.
It’s not a too-mah
I thought the same exact thing!
May u just need you’re pipe’s blown out.
By all means, feel free.
You were in rare form with this update, Jeff…well done.
Have you tired the Arizona Arnold Palmer half and half lite? It’s amazing. 99 cents for 23oz.
OK, this is FREAKY – right before I read this, I hit the Ladies Room and this woman came in right after me – and pissed the Mighty Mississippi. I thought she would need to flush mid-way.
And although this is off subject, the River Pisser looks like a bad botoxed tranny or a long defunct porn star. (or would that be de-fucked?)
Does the word “diuretic” ring any bells? Tea is notorious for that.
lol
‘using novelty voices’ got me going, and now I have a full-blown case of the giggles.
Whee!
I, too, was amused by this update. I also have a 40 mile commute to work and I usually fill up my big ass Bubba travel mug of coffee. If I time it just right, when I get off the elevator at work, I can just make it to the restroom before I piss my pants. Good times.
I like tea too, but I’ve gotten into the Green Tea craze. Not sure if it’s that or the fact that I’ve quit eating like a hog and started running again, but I’ve lost 26 lbs. since March. God, I miss sugar.
You’re not allowed to do a cartwheel unless we’re guaranteed that someone is videotaping it and will post it to the site immediately. I can’t even imagine how disasterous that attempt would be.
Love that tea update! There was a wreck in front of my office today. Big commotion. The guy ass ended some lady. He sat there in the car while she got out and ran around acting nuts. Later we found out why. He was wearing a shirt and tie and pretty much nothing else. No pants, no underwear, naked.
The cops came over and asked if we had any blankets or towels or anything. “Fucking guy is sitting in his car with a hardon, naked” the cop said. Of course I don’t have blankets or towels hanging around our office. The only thing I could offer was a roll of paper towel, but they refused.
God, there’s some sick ass people out there. Sicker than me, even.
No there is a scary thought
Uhh.. “now” not “no”
What you had is what I like to call a pee release. For some reason you had been holding water and your body decided that it was time to gooooooo. That tea is sooooo sweet! I usually ask for half sweet and half unsweet. Love those 1.00 big gulps!
Fear and Loathing in Scranton….
Awesome update, Jeff!
I call a monumental piss a stream of unconsciousness… wait, maybe that’s the name for pissing the bed. But yeah, my favorite beverages are members of the diuretic family (coffee and beer). Never cared for sweet tea, hot or cold – I like it bitter. Maybe if I had a sweet tooth instead of the “fat tooth”.
.
Aw crap…now there is some kind of disjointed “Tea-Pee” joke stuck in my head. Fucking Navajos.
There was a guy back in the day who worked at a Burger Chef out on Montgomery Road next to the drive-in north of Cincy years ago. Bulbous nosed short little weird-o. He played it up with a flannel flannel hunting hat and his name tag said Elmer.The guy was a blast.
Awesome update, Jeff!
LOVE Mickey D’s Sweet Tea. So refreshing. I always get it when I’m really thirsty. It’s gone in three gulps.
When my dad used to take us to the shore every summer, the drive was about 9 hours long. My mother had to pee so often he would threaten her that he’d make her sit on a big sponge to piss in. Then all she’d have to do is hold it out the car window and wring it out. Never came to fruition. Thank heavens.
Oh…right now I am HOOKED on McDonalds strawberry lemonaid slushy and the pineapple/mango slushy. If you never tried one…treat yourself. They are absolutely lushious.
Just got back from hospital…took advantage of the plastic surgeon I work for and had some lipo. A little…ok…a lot… of fat sucked out of my…waist down, let’s just say. I feel like Joe Pesci at the end of Casino. All I need is a shallow grave. At 48 years old, no amount of time in the gym will do for me that he did in the hour I was in there. So fuck it. It was free.
Were you the lady Jeff was talking about in front of him?
We’re going to have to see a picture now, bikerchick. Anything less is cruel and unusual punishment. And that “I don’t know how” shit won’t fly anymore. We’ll send someone over to help if needed.
Aw crap bickerchick. You had me years ago at FMPs and now this?
Nope. Wasn’t me. Don’t have a portly son. Ha.
It will takes months for all the swelling to go down. Prolly the bruising too. Photo’s to come….but I’m wrapped up like a Christmas ham now.
Oh…Jason, send help PLEASE. My new camera is suppose to be for beginners using DSLR. I love it but unfortunately, it is easier to find instructions on how to make a bomb that to find a fucking instructional tutorial for the camera on the internet.
So if there are any camera techie’s out there in Surf land, please throw me a bone.
I have a Canon Rebel T3 EOS/1100D w/ 18-55mm lens kit. The manual and DVD already assumes you know what the settings mean and how to apply them to each mode. It basically just give the features.
I am trying to shoot my jewelry. No flash is preferred but it pops up on a few of the settings. I have a light box already. Not sure what the best mode I should use…Macro, Manual, Av, Tv, P. And which settings for Apeture, WB, and ISO in conjunction with modes.
Thanks in advance to anyone with knowledge and a few tips!!
http://dslrtutorials.com/
and here is a tut on settings:
http://dslrtutorials.com/learning-to-use-digital-camera-settings/
Thanks Chuck…gonna look at these today! Xo
..and a thought from me…if you ever messed with the manual SLRs and got use to f stops and depth of field and all the hands on stuff you could/ had to do…it’s the same thing when you go to manual setting. I use to take the same shot with my Minolta SRT101 (I still have/ use it) and mess with settings and write down each shot on my note pad. (ah…the idle time of youth) Then when the film got developed I’d check out my work and see what did what. Now you have a delete feature on the camera and you don’t have to wait for developing so click away. Auto settings nowadays are cool and do a great job but getting inside what your camera can do is a blast.
I’ve had that strawberry-lemonade thing…and it made my mouth turn inside-out! Man, that thing was TART!
Pineapple/mango sounds way too high-falootin’ for a dumb ol’ hillbilly like me, even if it does come from McDonald’s!
So, let me get this straight, bikerchick. Your boss…knows what you look like naked. That’s a little weird. Fuck it, it’s free, that, I agree with.
Several of the people I work with have seen me naked (and a fair amount have seen my innards) because I work in the labor and delivery where I had my own baby. One of my best buddies delivered my baby and does my pap smears. Very awkward.
So, let me get this straight, all I got to do is offer free female body inspections!? Hot Damn. =-)
I’ve doing that for years out of my green ’79 Dodge van. The hell man? I’m a public service as far as I see it.
One of the many good quotes from the movie Knocked Up, “Admittedly, gynecology is just a hobby of mine.”
Stephanie: Yep. That was the worst part about the whole thing. I have been wanting the surgery for years (I’ve been here 8 yrs), but the thought of having to have my photograph taken by him, nude, from the neck down, kept me at bay for years. Then, before you go into the operating room, he has to mark you with a purple marker, circling the areas he will be working with. Boobs are one thing…but most women hate their bodies from the waist down.
They wheel you into the OR, then stand on a step to be washed down in betadine….fully awake…fully nude. Thank goodness our female P.A. did that. But she gotta get all up in your bidness, ya know?
I am now padded from the waist down with 1″ thick styrofoam with a girdle-type garment over top that eye-hooks and zips on each side. The styrofoam keeps bruising and seroma’s minimal. The garment decompresses swelling. And yes, it fucking hurts. Let you know Monday, when the padding comes off, if it was worf it!
Well, we’ll need a picture of that too. Thanks.
Sounds like an acid trip I took many years ago………….. Oh and I think I live in your neck of the woods now Mr. Kay. Just relocated to the SWB area for my gig.. Good to be back. It’s bee too long since I’ve been to the site. Work is WAY overrated
Good Evening Surf Reporters….
Great update JK. I felt I was there with you, feeling your pains, the whole way.
A pissathon was almost guaranteed each time I got behind the wheel of the motorhome. Yanking 40′ of metal to the side of the road, even to walk to the back, wasn’t always convenient. Through the magic of the innernet, I discovered The Texas Catheter – which, when installed with the handy collection bag laying on the floor in front of my seat, would solve ALL my problems.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Facing a 6 hour trip, I rolled on and hooked up the necessary hardware and started up I75. About an hour later it was time to try things out. Cautiously, I relaxed the muscles and SWEET SAINTED MOTHER CARRIE FRANCES FISHER!
The business end swelled up to freakish proportions, the “light adhesive” gripped and pulled some VERY sensitive skin and the PAIN brought tears to my eyes. Screaming off an exit, I stopped behind a semi and waddled back to the bathroom spraying the carpets, cabinets and dogs the whole way.
Apparently there is a one-way valve on the drain hose that I’d installed backwards. I’d rather piss myself every day than try one of those on again.
In retrospect, it was a good plan – but then again, so is a empty big gulp cup.
That there is some funny doodoo
—Steve…Damn man…part of the fun of a good road trip is stopping for a good roadside piss. Let the little man free to enjoy all of natures beauty. Mark your spot. Water a catcti or three. I’ve pissed on a Sequoia or two. I’ve pissed in the Atlantic, Pacific, the Gulf and all seven Great Lakes and streams and cricks from Key West to Anchorage.
Sorry…got away from me there a bit. I’ll concede a commuter’s piss is a different thing but a guard rail makes a really nice splashing sound.
Men are so weird.
The world is our toilet!!!!
I have a suggestion the next time you have a longing for a McD’s Sweet Tea: Buy it, take the lid off and pour it straight down the terlet. That way you can avoid the middle man!
I dunno, it kinda sounds like you’re just getting old and can’t handle your tea anymore, or something. 🙂
Jeff, this was one of the funniest things I have ever read. I just got stared at by my entire work because I literally laughed aloud when I read the last four paragraphs. Updates may be fewer and farther between, but the ones your giving us are pure gold.
Dammit! I’m being rick rolled by the voices in my head.
I was duckrolled by a former wife, but that was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead.
jtb
jtb,
Obscure references are awesome. Especially for us engineering majors who have never read Marlowe. But for the grace of Google…
.
chill…
To be honest, I picked it up from T.S. Eliot, who promptly handed it off to Inspector Morse. Eliot gives Marlowe credit, but I don’t recall whether the Inspector does a shout-out.
I’m not sappy enough to have read Marlowe; I’m just sappy enough to have read a lot of Eliot. He wrote Prufrock and Portrait of a Lady (from which the above phrase was taken), in his twenties. Just staggering.
And I agree that Google changes the nature of our conversations.
jtb
See, and I never would have known that Marlowe was considered sappy. Likewise Eliot, though I vaguely remember being made to read some Eliot or another in (junior?) high school. Not college – I was not required to take any English at all there.
.
And while we’re here, the book Catch-22 is fifty years old this year. Why not call someone you love or, for that matter, just about anybody, say “T.S. Eliot”, and hang up?
I’m not aware of an Internet meme to celebrate this golden anniversary; the telephone might provide a more reliable platform. Just a thought.
jtb
Anybody I know that was alive when that was written is an asshole and I’m sure they think the same thing about me. I have that book (paperback I admit) and I really like the part when Frank and Houlihan finally fuck.
Chill…
You might enjoy reading, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. It takes only 15 or 20 minutes, even if you read as slowly as I do.
For whatever it’s worth, I think the writing of Prufrock is one of human civilization’s ten most important achievements of the twentieth century, along with landing a human on the moon, inventing antibiotics and vaccines, ending racial segregation and extenting voting and other human and civil rights to minorities and women, ending child labor practices in the first and second worlds and establishing a forty hour work week for adults, discovering the structure of DNA and subsequently mapping the human genome, inventing/discovering the Theory of Relativity, the Quantum Theory and String Theory, developing the mass-production of left and right-foot-specific shoes, inventing and evolving the blues, jazz and rock music, and developing a durable global electronic telecommunications/information-collaboration infrastructure.
Certainly, your list will be different, as will everyone’s. In any case, here’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”…
http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
.
jtb
Shoot, I forgot the Jackrabbit Vibrator. OK, screw the moon stuff and add the vibrator.
jtb
So I make a stupid off-hand remark and the next thing I know we are discussing T. S. Eliot? The internets are wonderful things.
It wasn’t stupid; it was clever as usual. jtb
Credit the sweet tea or divine intervention, but you are in fine form today, Mr. Kay.
Um, make that yesterday. Guess I need a few sips of your sweet elixir.
OMG – I think I started to cry I laughed so hard today! Thanks, Jeff!
Happy Friday, Surfers!
Oh, Jeff, you are such a tease! Where, or where, is our long-ago promised Eninen update?
Yeah! My guess is he’s honing it so well, we’re going to be crying and breathless when we finally do read it.
Crying and breathless – could be either great or terrible sex. Just sayin’.
Wow…terrible and sex are two words I’ve never seen together.
“After four hours of terrible sex, Lisa started thinking about the way Julie’s hair smelled today. She wanted to smell it again.”
“After a couple of hours of terrible sex Bobby kept thinking things might get better if Stephen would stop by like he said”
“Old lady Poster sat at the bar at the VFW and looked around knowing the place was full of terrible sex.”
“It was only three minutes, and it was terrible, but Barry realized the claim was true: Even when it’s terrible, sex is still pretty good. He just wished his wife would stay awake during it once in a while.”
“It was only three minutes, and it was terrible, but Barry realized the claim was true: Even when it’s terrible, sex is still pretty good. He just wished his wife wouldn’t say ‘God bless you Tiny Tim’ when it was over.”
…just wished his wife wouldn’t say “thank you, come again”
Thanks Jeff, I’m sitting at a bar in rockville maryland a 12am with the biggest smile on my mug in a long time. I just read your post and it made me so happy. You’re the man!
Be sure to post that ‘buy jeff a beer’ link again soon. I’d gladly oblige.
May I still receive an autographed copy of your book? If so, I will purchase a copy. Please reply. Thanks.
Well the moral to this story is obvious: Don’t go to Mickey D’s.
I’m not going to try their sweet tea, and not just because that would mean going to D’s. I have a weakness for the stuff, and my blood sugar gets silly enough without it. I’m silly enough without a sugar buzz, too.