Outlier Status

The other day a colleague offered to get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks during an in-between time between work and a later event. Initially I resisted, but after telling her "a 12 ounce black coffee," I decided to ask if I could ride along to the coffee house.

Partly I felt like going for a ride, as if I were a puppy. But another part of me wanted to just pay for my own coffee. I don't usually buy products from Starbucks, but I was pretty sure I had enough cash for my small cup-a-joe. My thinking was that I would just buy my own drink when we got to the ordering or cash-register, or whatever.

That was my naivete showing.

It never occurred to me that she would have driven through the drive-thru. On the inside I laughing hard at myself, but on the outside I lost my nerve to demand to pay for my own drink, and was treated to a drink and some starchy calories.

It wasn't until the next day that I realized: I couldn't remember the last time I'd been through a drive-thru.

Was it 2009, during my October/November visit to Tony's in Louisiana, when the inevitable conversation Now that it's 3 AM, doesn't a trip to Taco Bell sound fantastic? happened?

Was it 2010 in Austin when Tony was visiting again and the hour was similarly late and the Taco Cabana was actually closed?

We drive to Sacramento at least once a year, and always sit down to eat at diners along I-5. I don't want to claim that we always have eaten well---I've eaten plenty of crapola in my days...

...But our situation is different. From 2000 to 2006, we lived in San Luis Obispo, a municipality that outlawed drive-thrus in the 70s. From 2006 through 2009 we lived in Brooklyn and didn't have a car. We spent 2010 in Austin and I worked two jobs and we were done with fast food. By the time we moved back to California, we were quite the food snobs, our parking situation at home was drastic enough to keep us out of our cars when we didn't have to be in them, and there being enough stuff within walking distance kept us out of the car in the first place.

It was like this past December when I rode my bike five miles along the beach in the chilly night air to run an errand before Ron and Carol arrived. It never occurred to me to use Uber or Lyft, which would have taken far less time and cost a trivial amount.

Sometimes I get the sense that the many things most American's have fully integrated into their lives that we---Corrie and I---have only a passing connection to, are the weirdo outlier facts that make us quintessentially American.