Aric McKeown

While memorials should be set in place to fondly remember those who have passed on, sometimes they are the saddest things in the world.

Unless you are a squirrel who has no concept of conciseness, you’ve probably been lying in bed thinking about your own mortality recently. It is an enormous thing to try and wrap your head around. Oddly enough, death only matters to the living. But enough philosophical baloney.

Aside from lying awake in the dark, nothing snaps you into the mortality line of thought faster than slightly sad memorials. For example, and as pictured, a memorial drinking fountain. Not to take away from the good intentions behind this action, but a drinking fountain?

Bam, thinking. Will I be remembered with more or less than a drinking fountain? Do I even want or need to be remembered? Do I go to another floor in search for a non-memorial drinking fountain? Is it alright to make fun of the sad memorial as a release of the tension created by these now radically deeper thoughts?

Enough of that. You’re not dead yet. And if you ever decide to write a hit indie movie, you have a good bit for it. Not that moviegoers will believe that a memorial drinking fountain exists. Because, honestly, aren’t awkwardly sad memorials reserved for park benches?

P.S. If you live in Wisconsin, I’m talking about a memorial bubbler.

While driving home from a hilarious viewing of Walk Hard…actually, that should be “a viewing of the hilarious Walk Hard.” My apologies. I did not mean to imply that my particular vision of the film was funny in any way. Aside from being horribly nearsighted, my eyes are quite normal.

Let’s move back to the story. While heading for home in a beat up red Mirage, my wife recommended that we stop at Culver’s for a quick and delicious dinner. Well, she just recommended Culver’s. I added the “quick and delicious” part internally.

With I continued to internally log different words for “delicious” and “quick,” my wife continued on. With the sugar level in her blood at a premium, she suggested from her reclined state that we take the drive thru. And that was when the anxiety hit.

I had never made the connection before last night, but drive thrus bring on quite a lot of panic. You wouldn’t think it, the way they casually shorten the word “through.” They’re just one of the guys, you might say to yourself. You’d be wrong, but perhaps it is the only way you can bring yourself to confront the speaker box.

The real issue with the drive thru is the speed in which you need to decide. This is fast food, after all. From the time you pull up to the menu that sits 10 feet away, you have milliseconds to decide on the food that you would like shoved at you “thru” a very tiny window. If you aren’t familiar with the menu, you’ve pretty much resigned to having a heart attack on the spot. Take the anxiety of being rushed and multiply it by the number of cars sitting behind you in the drive thru. There you have your Drive Thru Quotient.

Hold on, a “quotient” is the result of a division problem. Ummmm…divide that by the number of people in your car. Okay, I think we’re good there.

Perhaps you are a superman or woman, and are not afraid to look foolish to the teenagers working minimum wage. But if you can’t look cool to the kid saving money to take his 14 year old “steady” girlfriend to see National Treasure 2, who can you look cool to?

Luckily for me, my trip to Culver’s included no cars waiting cars. Meals were ordered quickly and with a minimum amount of stuttering. But I can’t help but wonder what else was on that menu. Would something have complimented my life better than the double Butterburger with cheese? Everything flashed by so quickly. Were there onion rings that could have been enjoyed instead of fries? Maybe ambrosia was on the menu and I missed it because I was rushed! Culver’s could have been serving the nectar of the Gods and I would have missed it.

Perhaps ambrosia is going a bit far, but my point had to be made. Every trip to the drive thru is like a steadily tightening knot in my chest. The anxiety serves no purpose and will do more damage to my lifespan than the greasy burger that is the result of my bravery.

When you’re rocking out in your nearly empty nursing home, take a moment to remember the unnecessarily anxious. Surely, our time was too short.