Gulley and I lived on the convenience store diet throughout college. We would stop at 7-11 on the way to class in the morning and start our day with a Big Gulp. Dr. Pepper for her. Real Coke for me. Most days we would each buy a package of powdered donuts to go with our 72 oz. beverage.
After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
We’d head to our Intercultural Communication class and daintily sip our carbonated drinks and eat our powdered donuts while we listened to Professor Gonzales lecture about you know, culture and communication. Obviously, all that sugar and caffeine was causing my brain to short circuit, because I actually made a 13 on a test in that class.
A 13.
I’ll never forget that he was about to pass out the graded tests and gave some lecture about how most people did pretty well, but there was one person who made a 13. Gulley laughed and wrote a note on my paper that said, “Maybe it was you. Ha. Ha.”
It was me.
Ha. Ha.
And after I got that test back, I gathered up my donuts and industrial-sized beverage and headed to my academic advisor’s office to let her know I was dropping the class. I mean, let’s be honest, you can’t recover from a 13.
Anyway, after a hard morning of academic achievement, we would drive back to our apartment and then go back to 7-11 with our roommates to get another Big Gulp. Everyone needs a little afternoon pick me up and what says pick me up better than 144 oz. of caffeine and sugar?
As we talked about our Big Gulp consumption, I had a few thoughts.
1. Did I drink even a sip of water throughout my college career?
2. Why could I not figure out that maybe part of what was contributing to my ever increasing weight was the fact that I was easily consuming 2000 calories a day in beverage alone?
And that’s not counting the Zima.
3. Do college students still drink Big Gulps or have they become extinct with the advent of the Grande Mocha Latte with extra whip?
4. It’s interesting that these days, unless I’m on a road trip, it would never even occur to me to drive to a convenience store for the sole purpose of purchasing something to drink. Sonic, yes. QuikMart, no.
I realize I have rambled enough about this entire subject, but during our Big Gulp conversation, Gulley brought up a memory that I had long forgotten.
Big shock there.
During my first senior year in college and Gulley’s junior year, we lived in a duplex right around the corner from a Quikmart. Needless to say, we were frequent customers making around 4-5 visits a day. It was our standard stop. We even knew all the cashiers.
One night, Gulley’s mama called and asked her, “Do you know somebody named Al?”
Gulley thought about it and said, “No, I don’t think so.”
Her mama said, “Well someone named Al called here looking for you and said he knows you from the Quikmart.”
It was then that we realized that Al was one of the cashiers at our favorite stop. It seems he had gotten Gulley’s phone number off of one of her checks and wanted to ask her out. And no, Al wasn’t exactly date material for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost because he was about 35 which, of course, is ancient. Fortunately, the number on her check was her parent’s home phone number, not ours.
As were laughing about this story this week, I made the comment that, looking back, it’s kind of scary that Al got her phone number off her check.
And Gulley said, “I’m not sure what’s scarier, that he got my number off my check or that I wrote a check for 94 cents to pay for a Big Gulp.”
Hope y’all have a lovely weekend.
**Originally published March 30, 2007**