Would You Like Fries With That?

Let the Marathon Begin!

It is time once again for that blogging marathon known as NaBloPoMo. It’s a mouthful, I know. It is also quite the commitment — thirty posts in thirty days. In November of all months!

Making that promise — to myself, to others — that I will write something every day is a good thing. Lately I’ve been slacking. Too much work. Too many computer games. And, of course, there is the oldest (and the best excuse), which is “I’m plum out of ideas”.

It’s not often that I find myself at a loss for words in my “real” life. Writing, though, is different. Writing requires thoughtful sentence construction, as opposed to the blathering that passes for verbal communication in my so-called “real” life. Truthfully, I am not blessed with many opportunities to converse, like a regular person, with anyone who interests me about anything I am interested in throughout the course of an ordinary day.

While at work, which is where I spend most of my time these days — college tuition payments being what they are — many of my conversations end with the sentence, “Would you like fries with that?”. I should be grateful, I suppose, as this is the one sentence that I am able to complete throughout the course of a shift.

Most other sentences or thoughts are almost always interrupted by requests for both the necessary items that are required for eating, items such as napkins or silverware, and the crazy things that even the best server could not have anticipated a need for — things like extra parsley. And lemons. One can never have enough lemons. Or a different free bread than the one that we normally serve. That sort of nonsense.

It makes little difference what I’m fetching, I’m fetching just the same. All of the fetching that is part and parcel of what I do for a living leaves very little time for conversation, stimulating or otherwise.

It is refreshing to know that here, in my little corner of the blogosphere, I have the opportunity to frame a conversation that has a beginning, a middle, and an end — an end that, thankfully, does not include “Would you like fries with that?”.

And so, for the next thirty days I will take this opportunity to have a conversation with you — about anything that piques my curiosity, gets on my nerves, or just plain old interests me. With that in mind, I say, “Let the marathon begin!”.