It’s barely ten a.m. and the temperature outside as I type this is already 82 degrees. Yep. It’s totally summer. I’m glad. The hot weather gives me an excuse to stay in and write. Strike that last. I’ll use any excuse to stay in and write, who am I fooling?
Weather like this always reminds me of the time I spent in New Orleans, back in the early nineties, way before Hurricane Katrina and the casinos. When it was hot like this, and that was all the time during the summer, you could go out to the daiquiri drive thru and get a strawberry daquiri. That’s right. In New Orleans, there were shops in strip malls that sold at least 10 different flavors of ALCOHOLIC daiquiris.
<—–Yes. Alcoholic slurpees. You’d go in (or drive up) and order the one you wanted. Then you would drive off home sipping at your daiquiri WHILE YOU DROVE. Yes. Awesome, right? Oh, for you teetoalers out there, there was always the Bahama Mama down at the faaaaar end of the row and the server would always sigh heavily and cut their eyes when they had to serve up one of those.
That large jar? That’s for tips. Yeah, not gonna happen. I just cleaned out the change holder in my Toyota to buy this daiquiri, boss. There’s nothing left for you, sorry. By the way, um, you’re NOT a waitress. You’re getting paid at least minimum wage.
Also, I think there was a ton of a lot more going on in those shops than I was aware of back then. People (guys) were always hanging around. And not the cool kind either. The kind that would ask you for a “ride”. Uh-huh. That’s another blog post.
Now I have to settle for a strawberry banana smoothie from Burger King. No alcohol. Le sigh.
When the heck is New Jersey going to get a daiquiri shop. I’d even give up the drive thru.