Things learned in my first hour

When I first stepped foot into my new house as its owner, I didn't do a couple of things. I did not dance about humming a Mary Poppinsesque tune. I did not hug myself and twirl around with glee. Maybe I'd watched too many sappy movies, but I thought I'd feel a certain joie de maison. Nope. It was a house. Slightly shabby. Littered with random cans, bags, and boxes (left over from my husband's brief residence...tidy he is not). I found certain unexpected things. Like scattered bee corpses (ewww) from the previous owner's hive extermination. Like I didn't know how to open storm windows.

I decided to defer the bee corpse disposal and the tidying. My first order of business would be to try to find some dinner. Preferably a quick dinner. Preferably drive through. I decided that McDonald's would be my first dinner as a Boston-area resident. My new and most phenomenal GPS took me to spot less than a half mile away. I took one lap of the building. It's a large McDonald's with a large parking lot, but where was the drive-through window? I took a second lap. Yes, it took that long to dawn on me that this McDonald's did not have a drive-through.

How is that even possible? Isn't drive-through one of the basic food groups? And for those of you who are shaking their heads about my children's diet, the drive-through food is not for them. It's for me...usually my lunch...usually Chick-fil-a...as I try to cram in some chemically enhanced calories while running errands.

I was so confused by the non-drive-through McDonald's that I ended up at Panera Bread for dinner. There, I almost ran over two high school girls as they sat on the curb in the parking lot. Silly girls. There's an exceptional school system here. Didn't they educate their students that angsting must be done in a visible, safe location? Not hidden by parked cars? The girls were still angsting (one draped dramatically over the hood of a car) when I left. They made me smile.

Oh...and one more thing. Just an FYI in case you run into this situation. Bee corpses are very, very hard to spot on a medium-stained oak floor.