TBWYCL Day 312 - Write about now

I had an interesting task today. Pick a letter and write it on a page and just begin writing whatever you think of. I find I can be more creative when I have an iced tea and fluorescent lighting in a fast food booth so I went to my safe place at the Whataburger and took my composition notebook, and here is what I got.

The shake more closely resembles chocolate flavored sand then milk. It is cold as it hits the tongue before dispersing with the heat of the mouth and melting. There is a chill to the shop, five degrees cooler than it should be in an effort to stop patrons and bums from taking up permanent residence in a booth to take advantage of the free refill policy. The smell of bleach rises from the tables as they dry to a sticky film.
The Collective meets every Sunday, except on holiday if their kids are visiting or on two different occasions when medical issues kept one of them from attending. Maurie and Clifton started the Collective 17 years ago. Both had retired and on the first Sunday they didn't have to work, they each went to breakfast at The Punch Buggie and after an incident involving hot coffee and shared love of blueberry pie, they became friends.
Clifton had joined Maurie at his table and as they got up to leave, the waitress asked, "Did you solve all the world's problems?" Clifton said, "Not yet but we knocked out a few" and Maurie added, "There's always next week."
In 17 years they had only solved a mixture of the New York Times Sunday Puzzle, the punchlines to half a dozen dirty jokes, and what the doctors really meant when they said things were 'fine' which meant 'fine for now.'
James joined the Collective about a year after it formed. His wife passed away a week before and after running through the bread, milk, and the last of the potted meat he finally ventured out of the house and into The Punch Buggie for his first outing as a widower. After hearing a ruckus from another booth, he asked his waitress what the commotion was and she told him, "They're over there solving the world's problems".
"Do you think they could solve mine?" he asked.
"I don't know, but I bet they'd be willing to try. Hey dumb butts! You want some company?"
"Only if you mean you" Maurie replied.
Somehow James was invited over, he always suspected to settle a bet, and the two became three.

Today they were tackling slow drivers.
"What we need are pods," Clifton explained. "They would have computers in them, and you would just say where you wanted to go. Then it would link onto a track and, using a giant computer, it would know how to get you there fastest and then you just sit back and read the paper or play with yourself or whatever."
He looked over at Maurie when saying the last bit. It was a running joke between the three men that one of them was the smart one, one the lucky one, and one just played with himself all the time.
Maurie grinned at him and began to play devil's advocate. "So you're in your pod and you're going along. What happens when you have a heart attack?" His hand reached for his chest as if reliving the event of six months ago. "Would it know to take you to a doctor?"
"I suppose it could, or there could be an emergency button you hit that automatically reroutes you. With these new computers anything is possible. What do you think James?"
James sat in the corner of the booth looking over at the register. A new girl had started that caught his eye and the boys knew it.

"James, pull your head out of your ass!" Clifton's gravelly voice snapped him out of the daze and brought him back to reality. "She's 30 years younger than you, you old pervert."
"A guy can dream can't he? If Hefner can do it, I don't see why I can't."
"I'm gonna guess it has to do with your shrivelled pecker and your empty wallet," chimed in Maurie. "She wouldn't give you the time of day."
"Yeah, you're right," said James, "I guess I will just have to go back to playing with myself," which caused the three men to bust into a cackle that drew the attention from the entire restaurant, including the cashier.

That is all,

Newt