Groups Part 4

Time marches on, bars close, and there's nothing left for my people but to go home. Their limousine bill is now up in the many hundreds of dollars, and they've stayed out way later than the original plan called for. The shine is off the evening.

Given the disparate aims of the folks, factions form. The factions sit together and sometimes snipe at the others. People fall asleep, or pass out, as the case may be. But there's one thing on which almost everyone agrees: it's time for some food.

The message comes quietly from the back at first.

How about some greasy food, Wombat?


Yeah, let's do T.Bell I hear someone else say.


Do they have In N Out here in Florida? some out-of-stater will ask.

Pause.

I want pizza says another.

Once they have made the group decision to stop (which will cost more money of course, we're still on the clock here) it almost doesn't matter where we go. I have all the 24 hour fast-food joints along the Interstate memorized, so I'm good to go.

But here's the problem. At that time of night, only drive-throughs are open, and the good people at The Bell and McDonalds and Burger King neglected to build them (the drive-throughs) for stretched limousines. We can't make the turn around the building, so I have to park somewhere adjacent and the folks must order on foot, so to speak. These places have rules. You cannot order at the pick-up window, mostly because at 3:30 am they're running a skeleton crew. What my folks do is line up as if they were in a car. Imagine this. Car with people ordering at the ordering station, car behind that one, two or three of my people standing waiting in line, swaying and slurring, car, car, and so on.

They give their order, and shuffle around to remain in line between the cars. When it's their turn at the pick-up window, you can see the guys trying to be cute with the minimum wage slave as if she were the most beautiful women ever. If it weren't so late, and I wasn't so tired, I'd be laughing my arse off. And still the night is young.




Pic from here.[link]

Edited for clarity.

Also published here [link]