Driving Doctor Mayhem

[7] Milkshakes

At that point, my nearest and dearest friend, Cricket Riddley, had given four years of of his life to the Dairy Queen. They were not, admittedly, the best four years that his life had to offer, but they were the best that had happened to him at that point.

Therein laid his problem: at nineteen, he had no frame of reference that could tell him that he had more to offer than serving a bajillion different flavors of milkshakes.

To be fair, neither did I at that point. The difference was, I was depressingly optimistic while he was depressingly pessimistic. I was also a bit of a loudmouth, so Cricket was well aware of my thoughts on the matter.

"I am not a pessimist."

"Oh?" I purred, trying in vain to drink a ridiculously thick chocolate shake.

"I am a realist, obviously."

"To-may-tow, to-mah-tow."

"That is so incorrect--"

He froze, cut off by the bell dinging as someone walked through the doors: an elderly woman with butterscotch candies spilling out of her purse. At the sight of a new customer, Cricket's face lit up.

He chirped a perky, "How may I help you, ma'am?" while gathering what candies were still intact from the linoleum floor.

The woman squinted at him. "Do y'all have a restroom?"

"Down the hall," he smiled.

She pinched his cheek to the point where it crossed from looking cute to looking painful, and drawled, "Thank you, young lady."

I halfheartedly tried to stifle my giggles, which was impressive, given that I was also trying not to choke on my milkshake. Cricket glared at me after the lady had meandered down the hallway. "That was not kind, Banksy."

"I'm sorry, do you want me to put my drink on your cheek?"

"Enough about me, yeah?" he said flatly. "You've been, uh, working for this guy for... what?"

"A full week!"

"Happen to figure out what he does yet?"

I shrugged. "Really, all he has me doing is his errands, and every once in a while he passes out--narcolepsy, it's rough--so I wake him up, when he prefers. On days when he's especially peevish, I let him sleep and watch Pay Per View on his TV, but don't tell him that."

Cricked blinked, stunned.

"Beyond those things, he has me collecting a suspicious amount of dinosaur Happy Meal toys from various McDonald's drive-throughs. Anyway, that's a little strange but--"

He waved his hands around, cutting me off. "Bansky! That's nice, uh, I guess."

"It's a different kind of nice."

"But what does he do?"