On the Road... Again

 

West of Nashville this morning

“There is no mile as long the final 

one that leads back home.”
― Katherine Marsh

Mike and I are on the final leg of this holiday trip.  We left Nashville this morning and headed west on I-40 avoiding, at least through tonight, bad weather.  Luckily for us, the blizzard hit the interstate from New Mexico through western Oklahoma two days ago while we were running around Nashville in sweaters.  Tonight, we're slipping around on ice and snow in Clinton, OK.

Not long after I took the first photo in this blog, we stopped in Dickson, Tennessee, to fill up the car.

"Oh, look," i said to Mike.  "The Shell station has a Dunkin Donuts."  Mike got out to get gas, and I got out to get a donut.

Donuts!

I have to add here that I love donuts, but I try to stay away from them because I love them.  I used to eat them all of the time, but as I've grown older, the donuts stay with me a lot longer (A moment on the lips = a lifetime on the hips.).  I hate exercise a lot more than I love donuts, if you get my drift.

However, I will have a small cake donut very occasionally.  Today was a good occasion for a donut.

It was not quite 7 am, but there were a bunch of people in line when I walked into the shop. Two women were directly in front of me, and three girls were in front of them.  At the head of the line was a family of eight adults.  Eight. Adults. Eight. Indecisive. Adults.

The DD line (Dud is front left.)

When I got in line, the family was in the process of ordering.

"What do you want?" the dad dud asked the mom.  She ordered something, and the clerk rang it into the register.  The dud turned his attention to girl #1 and asked what she wanted.  She looked at the menu board.

"I don't know," she said and continued to peruse the board.  Mom changed her mind and told the clerk she wanted to change her order.  Number 1 ordered something. The dud then asked one kid after another what he or she wanted.  Each one had to look at the board and take his/her time to decide.  Mom and one of the boys kept changing their orders.  The poor clerk was totally confused.  Dud turned around to see how many people were behind him.  He laughed. "We have a following."  I glared.

The Dud trying to get clerk's attention while we're in line.

After 10 minutes, Mike walked in to see what was taking so long.  "The Duggar Family Wannabees is still ordering," I told him.

I realize that you will find this hard to believe, but I am not patient with idiots, and sometimes Mike is even less so.  He started making comments after five minutes.  "Come on," he said.  "There are other people in line."  A few of the kids turned around, as did the dud.  They continued to take their time and change their orders. Someone finally came out to help the original clerk.  When she finally gave the dud his total, he questioned it, and they had to go through the whole order again.  "What now?" my husband asked.  After another few minutes, they got the bill straight, and the dud finally took his wallet out and started trying to put together his $40+ order.  One of the sons pitched in.

The three girls finally got to the counter and ordered.  They were done pretty quickly, and as they walked away, the family's hot biscuits or whatever came out.  While the ladies in front of us ordered, the dud checked the bag.  Apparently something was wrong, and he tried to get the clerk's attention.  She ignored him and waited on the two women.  One of them ordered quickly, but the second one had to look at the menu board to decide what she wanted.

The three daughters waiting for their bagels or whatever.

"For crying out loud," I said to Mike. We had been in line a good 20 minutes at this point, and the woman was just then deciding what she wanted.  After the clerk rang her up and handed her the donuts, the woman opened her purse to look for money.  I sighed and looked to my left where the family was poured over chairs and tables.  Dud was inching close to the front of the line.

"Don't let him cut in front of us," I said to Mike while giving dud the evil eye.  He heard me and stopped.

The woman in front of us finally left, and we ordered—one glazed and one chocolate cake—and paid within 30 seconds.

"Thank you for your patience," the poor clerk said as she handed me the donuts.  She rang up our order and gave us 10% off for waiting so long.


"This is my last donut of the year" I said to Mike as we got in the car. "It better be worth that wait."

It was.