“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.”
- Alfred Adler
OK, class, before we begin this week's column I want to try a little exercise. Pick a number in your head between 1 and 50. Got it? Good. Now in the time it took you to read this far, you should have already decided on a digit. In fact, I'm sure for most of you, a number just popped right into your head.
Maybe it was 21, or perhaps 7. I don't know, and to be perfectly honest, I don't care. So what is the meaning behind this little lesson? Simple; why does it take some of us so long to make simple decisions?
This drives me nuts each and every day of the week. You see I'm one of those people that don't function very well in the morning. So to make my day easier I have developed a routine to get myself going.
I wake up, take a shower, get dressed, warm up the car and drive to Dunkin Donuts for two apple fritters and a medium decaf. My day is going great until I enter the store, where without fail, there is someone who is standing between me and my morning nutrition staring at the menu board as if it's the Rosetta Stone.
After about five minutes I just want to smack that person with a blueberry muffin and scream “Get a coffee and donut and get on with your day already!”
Everywhere you go to eat these days people feel the need to take there own sweet time in making any kind of simple decision. It's not like your plotting out the course of your life, we're talking breakfast.
I know that a lot of those new age people have read all about Fueng Shui and how it's improved their lives, but let me clue you in on a little enlightenment of the universe, there is no such thing as Food Shui. There's no ancient Chinese secret granting you success with the choice of a cruller over the glazed. The only lesson in the coffee shop is this. If you wearing a black suit, don't get the white powdered donut. This advice has nothing to do with mysticism. I'm just trying to help you avoid a messyism.
The best, though, is those folks who squint when they look at the menu board at McDonald's. It's as if they stare hard enough they might discover some hidden menu item tucked behind the McNuggets. These people usually have a copy of The Da Vinci Code earmarked next to their beds. I would never assume to be all-knowing, but I can speak with some certainty that the Freemasons aren't into controlling fast food. Hate to break it to you, but not everything in life is a conspiracy.
Though perhaps I'm wrong, and when I pass on to the pearly gates an angel will look down on me and say in an omnipotent voice, “So sorry but we can't let you in. Perhaps you should have chosen the jelly filled.”
Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each
Sunday, in The Citizen. He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com
OK, class, before we begin this week's column I want to try a little exercise. Pick a number in your head between 1 and 50. Got it? Good. Now in the time it took you to read this far, you should have already decided on a digit. In fact, I'm sure for most of you, a number just popped right into your head.
Maybe it was 21, or perhaps 7. I don't know, and to be perfectly honest, I don't care. So what is the meaning behind this little lesson? Simple; why does it take some of us so long to make simple decisions?
This drives me nuts each and every day of the week. You see I'm one of those people that don't function very well in the morning. So to make my day easier I have developed a routine to get myself going.
I wake up, take a shower, get dressed, warm up the car and drive to Dunkin Donuts for two apple fritters and a medium decaf. My day is going great until I enter the store, where without fail, there is someone who is standing between me and my morning nutrition staring at the menu board as if it's the Rosetta Stone.
After about five minutes I just want to smack that person with a blueberry muffin and scream “Get a coffee and donut and get on with your day already!”
Everywhere you go to eat these days people feel the need to take there own sweet time in making any kind of simple decision. It's not like your plotting out the course of your life, we're talking breakfast.
I know that a lot of those new age people have read all about Fueng Shui and how it's improved their lives, but let me clue you in on a little enlightenment of the universe, there is no such thing as Food Shui. There's no ancient Chinese secret granting you success with the choice of a cruller over the glazed. The only lesson in the coffee shop is this. If you wearing a black suit, don't get the white powdered donut. This advice has nothing to do with mysticism. I'm just trying to help you avoid a messyism.
The best, though, is those folks who squint when they look at the menu board at McDonald's. It's as if they stare hard enough they might discover some hidden menu item tucked behind the McNuggets. These people usually have a copy of The Da Vinci Code earmarked next to their beds. I would never assume to be all-knowing, but I can speak with some certainty that the Freemasons aren't into controlling fast food. Hate to break it to you, but not everything in life is a conspiracy.
Though perhaps I'm wrong, and when I pass on to the pearly gates an angel will look down on me and say in an omnipotent voice, “So sorry but we can't let you in. Perhaps you should have chosen the jelly filled.”
Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each
Sunday, in The Citizen. He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com
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Post your comment - click hereThere are 1 comment(s)
Yikes wrote on Jan 27, 2008 2:43 PM:
I noticed this exact type of behavior becoming more prevalent over the past few weeks and as such, I've developed a theory.
Perhaps it's not the food selection but rather the prices that patrons are calculating throughout their decision-making process at the counter. I'd surmise that looming in the back of their mind is the uncertainty of paying an additional $10 annually in school taxes. I mean, who has this kind of money just laying around?
For many, it could mean the difference of sticking with large fries or going with a small order for a week. It's all a big gamble during times of uncertainty.
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