By Jim Hagarty
2016
This has happened to me so often it isn’t funny any more.
I am sitting in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, finishing a coffee, when I begin thinking about a refill. I look to the restaurant drivethrough and see with excitement that it is absolutely vehicle-free. Yippee, I exclaim. (I always say yippee when I am happy.)
I am about 200 feet from the entrance to the drivethrough. I start my car, begin to make my way …
And then, in some weird, other-worldly fashion, four ninja-cars appear out of the sky and file into the drivethrough in the 22 seconds it takes me to drive from my spot to the entrance.
Four. And today was a good day. Normally, empty drivethrough, start my car, look up and their are SIX or more phantom vehicles that were nowhere on the planet until I made my move. I don’t know if they even have real drivers and passengers in them.
One thing the possible occupants of all these automobiles have is a desire to order the entire restaurant menu, enough food to feed the aliens back on whatever planet they just recently fell off of.
The only bright spot is, by the time I reach the window, I really, really need that refill.
