A Good Plan, Seven Months In The Making

Weather-wise, yesterday was the worst day of the year.  The morning low was 72 or 74.  It reached 90 by 11 in the morning.  And it was as oppressively humid as I've ever remembered it being in Minneapolis.

That, plus the fact I didn't eat anything in the morning before going into "work" at the U., gave me the perfect opportunity I was waiting for to finally cash in on my free Orange Julius.  Oh, I blogged about it, but here's the gist of it: New Year's Day I went to the local mall and bought a piña colada smoothie and it sucked.  I did send a message on the Dairy Queen website, and I did get a response.  Not only was I sent a five-dollar gift card, I also got a call from the manager of the store where I bought the ice-drink pledging I will get a free large piña colada the next time I come in.  Plus, she said that the girl who fucked up my drink was going to be fired very, very soon.  Awesome.  This is customer service at its best.

However, it's been seven months since I got this offer.  I didn't want a refreshing smoothie in the winter, I wanted to wait until I absolutely needed it, in the summer -- like yesterday.  So during my chores, one of which had me going to the mall to pick up a purse for my Grandmother anyway, I decided this was the perfect time.  I go up and tell her I want to use it, and she had no idea who I was.  Uh-oh.  But then I told her my name, and she said, "Large piña colada smoothie!"  Yes!  There's a list of names the store has to make make-up drinks for, and it was so long ago, my name was taped over by another list of names.

The only thing I could question is when I got it.  I wanted to get it as soon as possible because I had an empty stomach and I was kind of afraid I wouldn't finish enough of it by the time I got home after my errands.  But that meant drinking the first part of it -- turned out to be more than half -- in the comfy confines of the mall while walking from one of its ends to the other to retrieve the purse.  That didn't give me a whole lot to drink when I got back outside, got into my sweltering car, and trying to keep it together while going to the bank, checking out a self-storage space, and checking gas prices.  I should be happy I didn't have a whole lot of Orange Julius in case I spilled while driving, but what I had left was fairly warm, and so it didn't give me the entire cool-down effect I would have gotten if, say, I immediately went to my car after picking up the piña colada.

Minor quibble.  It was hot, I was hungry, and so it was the perfect time to get a huge Orange Julius smoothie.  It took seven long months, but my plan worked!