"Going to Quick Shop"

"Summer, summer, summertime./Time to sit back and unwind." Will Smith (aka The Fresh Prince)

"Summertime" video. Click it; you know you want to.

That really has nothing to do with today's blog, but it is Friday, and you deserve it.  Today I had a date. I went to The Metro with my beautiful daughter Emily. We ordered coffee. Actually, we ordered coffee, but then I had to change my order to a small iced tea because I had a couple of small bills and a $50 bill (Why I would be carrying a $50 bill is another topic completely, so I may revisit that.), and they could not make change for a $50. Really? They could not make just over $40 in change at an established business at 11:30 in the morning? Not a garage sale or a lemonade stand, but an actual brick and mortar business that charges over $4 for fancy coffee and does major business in the morning. Anyway, she ordered iced coffee, and I had iced tea. More importantly, we found a tall table next to the board games and snagged the Scrabble game. Nearly two hours later, Em played her last tile to end the game. I won, by the way.

The coffee and the Scrabble really do not matter. It used to be a sno-ball and small fountain drink at the C-Plus store.  Emily and I started going on these outings many years ago; I think she was probably three or four years old. I was coaching football, and I realized that I could go days without actually sitting down with my family. I decided that every Saturday morning, Emily and I would "go to the Quick Shop." Later, we included her little brother, and they got their sugar fixes for the week.  So did I, to be honest. Those visits were fun, ad they were something we all looked forward to.

A while back, maybe a year ago, I asked Emily if she wanted to go get a drink, just the two of us. She said she wanted to, and when I asked where she wanted to go, she said, "Can we go to Kwik Shop?" Not Hastings, not Starbucks, not The Metro, not even the McCafe. Kwik Shop.  She told me that day that she remembers "going to the Quick Shop", and she missed doing that.  Honestly, I did too.

When I was a kid, my dad would say to my sister, brother, and me, "Let's go for a ride" or "Who wants to get a pop?" Back then, a 32 oz fountain drink was huge, so Dad was the only one who got a pop so freakishly large. I did not really think about "going for a ride" or "going to get a pop" until we started making out weekly trips to  C-Plus. Recently, I went back to Ellsworth. My grandma had passed away, and the funeral was the next day. Earlier in the week, my dad had said, "I do not sit around very well." As soon as I go to the house, Dad and I drank a cup of coffee. A couple of minutes later, he said "Let's go for a ride." We drove out and spent some time at the farm with my aunt and cousin, and then drove back to town. At that point, it was purely "going for a ride." We covered every neighborhood in the sprawling metropolis that is Ellsworth. We didn't even stop for a pop. We were just "going for a ride." It was time well-spent.

Nowadays, we do not "go to the Quick Shop" each and every Saturday. Sometimes, the two of them  will venture down with their mom and me  and get Shaved Ice (the greatest snowcones in Hutch). The other day, Dylan, Emily, and I walked do to Hastings. No reason, we just walked down to Hastings.  Sometimes we just go get a drink at Kwik Shop, although Hutch's Kwik Shops do not have places to sit.  Plus, as most of you know, Hostess has shut down, and, therefore, Sno-balls are hard to find, and I do not drink pop anymore. However, that does not really matter; it has nothing to do with the snacks, the drinks, or the place we sit. It has to do with "going to the Quick Shop", and the fact that that is something we miss. It is something worthwhile.

So, it is summertime, time to sit back and unwind. Relax. Go to Quick Shop, go for a ride, or go get shaved ice. You might miss it later, but you will never regret it.