I stole a salt shaker from McDonald’s. This is not an admission of guilt and if asked to sign a confession, I would say you made the whole story up and that you were the stealee, and you’re projecting, you should really address that. And this was 30 years ago after all so I think the statute of limitations has expired…and I’m sure the statue of limitations has passed as well, and after hearing my story, I’m quite certain you’ll erect a limited statue in my honor. Let me start over, a friend stole a salt shaker from McDonald’s and he or she or they told me their or thems or theys story.
I was with a friend, well sort of. Not that she wasn’t a friend, but she was more than a friend, sort of, much more than I realized at the time. And we were in college, and we were hungry, that’s where McDonald’s comes in, don’t judge me, you’ve been in college, some of you, and you’ve eaten there too.
Today, I wouldn’t really call McDonald’s food, not that I wouldn’t not call it food, I just don’t want to get sued, not again anyway, the legal dance with Starbucks was fun though and I did get a year’s worth of begrunde oat chocha-smocha chi lottos for no charge. But I was in college and I was experimenting and we all have regrets, not that we want to talk about, but writing this is saving me $150 on a therapy session. And McDonald’s is not really a salt and peppery ‘food…and not really a mustard food but something one adds ketchup to as well but some call to catsup and when I was a kid, I thought there were cats in it which didn’t make it any less appealing.
As we were eating, I guess it’s still called eating even though it’s not really food, and the salt and pepper shakers were right there on the table, teasing us, taunting me. The looked like two mini nuclear reactors or a Close Encounter of the Third Kind movie poster or two posters side-by-side.
But they were there, and I was there, wes was anywho, and I got curious, and I’m not a cat so I figured it was okay. I picked the salt shaker. First I held it upright between my thumb and forefinger, then I turned it around. Then I rolled it over in my hand and some salt spilled out on the table. I got a chuckle from they and a, “What the hell are you doing?”
It had holes on the top and a clear base that was about a quarter on an inch high. I attempted to screw off the bottom, to twist off the top, to squeeze it as if there was a pressure release, and then I rub it like I had three wishes coming. Nothing opened the shaker. I was racking and wrecking my brain as to how theys get the salt back in the shaker.
The shakers had to be good for a couple of hundred shakes and they had to refill them somehow. The only way I could see that the shakers could be filled is through the top and one painstakingly slow grain at a time, and who wants that job. They would have to provide me with tweezers and that eyepiece thing the jewelers wear, or I would likely prefer the monocle thing Mr. Peanut wears.
So I liberated one from the McDonald’s, I think that’s the legal term, or to be more accurate, I slipped it in theirs jacket pocket. We's brought is back to school and I had no class for a few hours so I sat on one of the benches in the main area of the Classroom building; I didn’t just call I that because it had classrooms in it, that was the name of the building. How original.
I turned it, I twisted it, I squeezed it, I rolled it around in my hands, and I still couldn’t figure out how this little plastic contraption worked. And I noticed a murder of crows frolicking outside, and yes, a gaggle or crows is a murder which is why I used frolic to reduce the charge, and I thought about tossing it to the crows, they’re crafty, and perhaps they could figure it out and I would take the credit, who are they going to tell? But I though better of it, so I put it on the ground, the shaker not the crows, and I stomped on it.
The stomp worked with getting the salt out, and in thoroughly destroying the salt shaker, I don’t use salt anyway so it’s not really a loss. As I examined the pieces, it was still not clear to me how they got the salt in.
For the rest of the day, the main area of the Classroom building had salt everywhere and it felt like walking on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Everyone kept looking down to figure out what was on the typically smooth floor, something the crows never had to think about.
The next day, we went back to that McDonald’s and I asked the question. And the girl behind the counter said, “They’re disposable. When they’re empty, we throw them out.” Disposable, just like the hour, it definitely wasn’t more, don’t judge me, you weren’t there, I spent trying to figure them out.
