Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Van Dammit, Part the Second


"Yeah!" said Lynn, "you could scheme to distribute all sorts of things through Mickey D's..."


Speck arched an eyebrow. He was good at that. "Even food?" he asked sarcastically.

Mel, unfortunately, was intrigued. "OK, say a pretty brunette comes into the drive-in. The guy in the window is prepared to give her anything she wants."
"Amazing, since he can't see or smell her through the speaker."
"There's a video camera hidden in the sign."
"There IS?" Lynn was astonished. "I'd better put my shirt on."

Mel did not relent. "Now, she asks for the seaweed hash browns, hold the sea & browns."
"Other than being a massively stupid way to phrase it, doesn't that take us back to the original problem?"
"That it does!" Mel replied. "Suppose, then, that the brunette asks for 'Nothing, just some coke.' How does the guy reply?"
"Uh, 'That'll be $298.33; please pull forward' and see how she reacts?"
Lynn cut in with "Shouldn't he ask her if she wants that in a bag, just to be sure?"
"Maybe" Speck shrugged. "The brunette would be savvy. A blonde might not even notice the outrageous price. Besides, she'd ask for diet coke, whatever that would be."
"Hey!"
"But, either way, if you're the guy in the window, you win."

Lynn's lower lip protruded in a pout that could only make a man think of a few things, most of which he didn't care about anyway. "C'mon, now, I can't help my stupid hair color. I had black hair briefly. It looked green in the sun."
Mel was still fixated and said "You know, it'd be much simpler just to use coffee."
"And why is that?" Speck queried.
"Because you frequently hand out these convenient little packages of white powder with coffee, anyway. So, if you wanted a dime bag of coke, you could order "coffee cut with sugar."
"Yeah! And heroin could be Sweet n' Low."
"But what would Equal be?" Lynn wanted to know. "I put that everywhere."
"Hmmm.... angel dust, I guess, though it's a bit out of fashion. And everyone knows about the coffee stirrers, so you're right in there up the nose with those."
"I don't get it," Lynn said, shaking her head with a lack of understanding, "couldn't you burn your nose really badly using it that way?"

Speck & Mel turned around to eye her; partly in disbelief over what she'd just said, and partly because she still hadn't put her shirt back on.

"I mean, they have that warning on the cup & everything..." She withered under their looks. "What if you wanted just plain, real sugar?"

"Then," deadpanned Speck "you are out of luck, babe."

No comments: