Thumper Thinks Out Loud

I only wanted a box of macaroni & cheese. That’s all. Just one box of cheesy wonder to go with the ham I’m making for dinner tonight. Since the Boy does not live with us, we rarely have mac & cheese anymore, so I had to venture out into the world and get some.

As I leave the house I notice it’s cloudy, but I don’t think anything about it; after all, I checked the radar on both Weather Bug and the Weather Channel (both online and on TV.) There was no rain over our wonderful little corner of the Midwest, so off I went, in my spiffy little red ragtop (top up) to Meijer.

I get there, grab my box of Kraft mac & cheese, wait at the self-serve checkout behind some woman who has 65,000 items above the allowed, and who does not seem to understand the process. But I’m not in a hurry, so I’m patient. Everyone who wants to try the self serve check out has to learn it first.

While I wait, I hear this horrible noise, like tacks being hurtled from the sky onto the metal roof of the World’s Biggest Grocery and Discount Store (ok, so perhaps I exaggerate a bit…but it's pretty big) I look up and out the big front windows, and it’s raining so hard I can’t see the cars in the parking lot.

I scan my M&C box, shove a dollar into the cash slot and get my 1 cent in change, and head for the doors, thinking perhaps I’ll wait inside until it blows over.

And it does…in less than a minute it’s nothing but a nice, easy rain shower, so I head for my car, thinking I’m very glad I wasn’t driving in that.

I should know better. There were dozens of cars trying to get out of the parking lot on the end I normally do, I figure what the hell, I’ll go to the other end. It’ll probably be quicker.

It might have been, if not for the van broken down in the lane I needed to be in to turn the direction I wanted to go. I was forced to go straight, so I thought fine, I’ll turn around at Wendy’s and then head home.

And thus, did the sky open up once again, thundering rain drops the size of small dogs onto my car.

You know, the pretty little red convertible with the roof that leaks.

It rained so hard that I pulled into the Wendy’s parking lot to wait it out, because I couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead of the car. It rained so hard that I got thoroughly soaked just sitting there in the driver’s seat, minding my own business, trying to stay off the road so that I wouldn’t be a big red traffic hazard. It rained hard for about half an hour, long enough to make me want a burger, just long enough that I caved and went in (the rain no longer mattered, since I was wet anyway.)

As soon as I sat down with my burger and diet coke, it stopped raining.

I blew my diet for the day, all for a box of macaroni and cheese.
But it was a good burger, and worth it, I suppose.

Now watch me screw up the mac & cheese tonight…