Funny Little Things ...

I've spent the last week being a casual observer of little things. Little, curious, odd, funny things.

For example:

I gave up drinking soda in March, so I've turned myself into an ice-tea, water, Vitamin Water, coffee drinking machine. Now, as an on-the-go poor artist, there are two fast food places I allow myself to frequent: Subway, and Del Taco. At first, my surrender of soda was hard-pressed when dining out ... but when one is completely under the drug-induced coma of Coke (soda, people, soda), wimpy, weak, and docile beverages like Iced Tea just don't come under one's awareness.

However, as I am becoming a connoisseur of Ice Tea in particular, these two places make the best Iced Tea to go. Now, Subway uses FUZE Iced Tea, which is really, really good. Like, I-don't-need-to-put-sugar-in-it-to-drink-it good. And while Del Taco is also very good, I DO need to put in a sugar packet or two to give it a little kick.

So when, at the Del Taco drive in window, I ask for sugar for my Iced Tea, inevitably the question is:

"How many?"

Now, it seems like most fast-food establishments have made this question a trend for all sorts of things - creamer for coffee, ketchup packets, sauce for Chicken McNuggets ... and these people wait anxiously for your answer, as if waiting to catch you red-handed in a sneaky, under-handed attempt at stealing their precious and oh-so-valuable supply of condiments. But I always take great delight in saying:

"Two, please."

Two is a nice, even number ... not too much, but not so little that it's a waste of the drive-thru attendant's arm-movement of reaching for the respective condiment box.

But ... something different happens during my quest for sugar packets... the question is the same, my answer is rock solid, and then ...

the person at the window reaches a big, gaping claw (imagine the metal claw in toy-games at pizza parlors and low-end stores like K-Mart) into the box of sugar, and drops an entire handful of sugar packets ontop of my bean and cheese burritos (with red-sauce).

Why? WHY, in the name of resourcefulness and condiment hoarding, would they do this?? In my requests for any other kinds of condiments, I am usually short-changed ...

So hear this: if you ever run out of sugar, and are in the middle of baking cookies -from scratch- go down to your local Del Taco and follow these steps:

1) Order an Iced Tea.
2) Ask for some sugar packets.
3) When asked for quantity say "two, please."
4) Take over-flowing bag of sugar home, put into 3/4 measuring cup*

* If you're making a double batch of cookies, up your ante to three sugar packets during step #3.