Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Dunkin' Donuts Coffee: The New Crack

I am, as many of you know, an idiot. I am also new to blogging, and as such, I’ve been farting around the web reading other people’s blogs trying to get a clue as to what I’m supposed to be doing with this thing since my incredibly short attention span seems to have brought my campaign for king to a screeching halt.

Turns out that blogging is a form of journalism, and I’m supposed to be journalizing or something. Over the past couple of days I started multiple journalistic investigations, and I think I’m off to a good start. This issue of The Idiot Insider will focus on junk food in all its fatty goodness.

Item The First:
Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee may well contain crack cocaine. This is part of a long term investigation I’ve been doing since we moved. There is literally a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner here, and I’m doing my best to visit each and every one. In the past six months I’ve had roughly 1,756,219 cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I’m not only not tired of the stuff, in fact, I’m not tired at all. I’m perky and bouncy and can’t wait for the next cup. I may pause the writing of this and drive to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts and get another. Starbucks Schmarbucks.

Item The Second:
The person taking your order at the McDonald’s drive-thru is probably standing inside the McDonald’s. I know, I know, this seems obvious. You scream your order at the little plastic speaker shrine and a minute later you’re paying a person wearing a headset who appears to be taking the order of the person behind you, but you never know about these things.

You see, last Friday was poker night at the Chez Idiot and one of my neighbors, while participating in the monthly ritual known as fleecing the idiot, mentioned that he’d read that McDonald’s drive-thru orders got beamed to people in cubicles in Colorado. It’s more efficient, he said, because those people are more focused on taking the order and are less likely to screw it up. They’re also better at getting drivers to order more food or something. My other neighbors and I were stunned, and of course we immediately wondered why there are all those kids running around the local McDonald’s wearing headphones, but the original neighbor assured us that they’re talking to each other and the cubicle guy in Colorado, not to us.

Soon we were back on to more important topics, like which of the twenty-seven local Dunkin’ Donuts has the best coffee, and eating the fantastic batch of chili I made for poker night. (See, I told you I’d been farting around the web). I forgot all about it until I found myself at McDonald’s the next day.

Me (to plastic speaker shrine): Hi, uh, where are you?
Speaker Shrine: Excuse me?
Me: Um, Are you like in Colorado?
Speaker Shrine: No Sir, I’m here in New Hampshire, Are you Ok? Would You like to order now?

So I ordered and pulled up to the window and the very nice girl in the headphone again assured me that I was talking to her, not to a guy in a cubicle in Colorado. The look on her face as I offered my explanation as to why I was asking assured me that my license plate number was going into the McDonald’s drive-thru database of crazy people, and that she was really just hoping to get through the transaction without gunfire or nudity. I got my happy meals and skulked away, resolving to give up investigative journalism forever.

The good news in all this is that there is no Item the Third. I’ll leave the reporting to the pros, I’ll just copy and paste their funny stuff. For the sake of my readers, however, I will continue to research the Dunkin’ Donuts story, one cup at a time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As one deeply in love with a Canadian I feel compelled to tell you (one living very close to the US/Canada Border) that you should tread lightly on the subject of donut places.

Those rabid northerners are incredibly protective of their Tim Horton's chain. Now, you and I both know that Dunkin Donuts (pride of Rhode Island) is the best purveyor of Lard and Caffeine on the planet, but our friends with the frozen brains will cross check you in a second if they hear anything that does not make Tim's to be the top of the heap. (I should note that redneck Southerners can be fiercely and viloently protective of Krispy Kremes).

To make matters worse Tim Horton's is now actually owned by Wendy's. So you must fear that your DD and McD favoritism could start a border skirmish. Please be very careful. [N.B. there were some many finger in donut jokes to be made but I showed admirable restraint!]

What can we say about the fact that both of the Great White North's favorite feed bags have apostrophes in their name? Are they a possesive people? Do they want our turf as well...Can we get some of those Arizona Minutemen to protect the northen flank as well?


The VIBIL

prying1 said...

re: "farting around the web reading other people’s blogs trying to get a clue as to what I’m supposed to be doing with this thing since my incredibly short attention span seems to have brought my campaign for king to a screeching halt." -

I've noticed you do not capitalize 'king' or 'king of the world'. neither do you put the little (tm) next to them. If you are not careful someone will put a trademark on it and sue your butt for all past posts using these terms. I suggest you see a lawyer immediately. In case you do not have a lawyer I have a cousin that plays one on TV that will do the job for half the cost. - Just email me with your PayPal account info... -(:-)