1998: A Spinal Tap moment

The life of a college student is to enjoy the simple things of life...things normal citizens take for granted. Air conditioning. Pay for your work. Cooked food. One of my simple pleasures was fast food beyond the played-out old KFC in Blazer Hall. I would save up my cashflow so I could splurge on Taco Bell for dinner on Thursdays.

Occasionally my posse and I would make a weekend stop at the Nicholasville Road Bell for a little fun time. Hey, they had a jukebox. As was my custom in those days, my order invariably included a Meximelt with no pico. This request, humble as it was, turned out to be a curveball for unsuspecting Taco Bell cashiers, who would scan their keypad furtively looking for that elusive "no pico" button. As I said before, this was my custom, so in spite of my upside-down perspective a byproduct of my consistency was my involuntarily learning where this button was.

So here I was, Friday night, and this poor guy with a 70s mustache and a too-cool-for-school black mullet was looking for the no pico button. And looking. And looking. Patient me was looking as well. Finally after a good 30 seconds I could take it no more and pointed toward the object of his quest.

"Don't touch my register," came the reply and accompanying backhanded swat. He mumbled it under his breath and didn't look up, so it took me a second to realize that it was really happening.

"I wasn't touching it, I was just pointing at it," I said. I wasn't going to touch it. I was just pointing at it. Can I look at it?

I must have really teed this guy off. I looked up later to see him still stewing behind the register, taking short paces back and forth, scowling. The manager would walk over occasionally and say something to him.

I had no desire to die, so I left as soon as we were finished. I'm not sure what happened to that guy. I didn't see him there any more.