Oh, the things you'll see...

...in the middle of the night.

Starting work at 3:00 in the morning is quite interesting. I always joke that the commute is great (which it is), but there are things that you see in the wee hours that you usually don't see during the day. When I work on the weekends, I will generally see tavern owners closing up their businesses, and lines of people waiting for taxi cabs to take them home. One night, I drove past a gas station on State Street as a couple of guys starting pushing each other and moving out into the street as one of them started swinging at the other one with a single jack sledgehammer. I put my head down and stepped on the gas pedal.

But this morning I saw something that really threw me for a loop. As I left my house, I realized that I was in desperate need of some liquid refreshment, so I pointed towards the nearest giant yellow "M". As I waited in line, I noticed that the vehicle in front of me was a new Ford pickup truck with a woman behind the wheel and several hunting window stickers (you know what I mean: a picture of a trophy deer that says "Shut the buck up" or something like that). As I waited an inordinate amount of time in line, I became curious about what she ordered that would cause such a delay. After several minutes, the window slid open, and my question was answered. She was handed FOUR HAPPY MEALS.

What?

That's all she got; just the four happy meal boxes, followed by one of those cardboard trays with four small drinks. After a minute of arrangement, she put her giant truck in gear and left. I couldn't stop thinking about how bizarre it was. What would she want with four happy meals at 2:30 on a Thursday morning? It's been on my mind ever since, and I have come up with a few theories, but they all leave something to be desired:

1. She was getting grub for her son/daughter's sleep-over. This is the first thing that came to my mind. But most kids are in school now, and when I was younger and had a sleepover, I might have been awake at 2:30 a.m., but my mom wasn't going on a food run for us, as cool as she is. Plus, most kids grow out of their happy meal stage long before sleepover age and order from the big boy menu. This doesn't seem right.

2. She was driving on a road trip and needed some late-night food for her and her family. Again, possible, although a road trip in that gas hog of a truck doesn't make much sense. Plus, you'd think that the kids would be asleep, and the McDonalds wasn't right off of the freeway or anything. I noticed her drive away and turn into a neighborhood, so this isn't the answer either.

3. She was on an eating binge and was going to get loose on some food like Meredith Baxter-Birney did in a Lifetime movie that I saw when she ate a whole cake in her car. With her hands. I like this reason most of all, and can picture her ravaging those kids' meals like a pack of wolves tearing into an elk. But if this were the case, why would she go with the happy meals? The box format and the smallish bags of fries would just slow you down (plus you'd have to be careful not to eat the prizes in your haste). Wouldn't you just order a sackful of cheeseburgers, a half dozen turnovers and an 84 oz. coke and go to work? I think this explanation has legs, but I can't be certain.

Alas, when it was my turn, I got my drink and .99 double cheeseburger (no pickle, no onion) and left, trying to catch up to the side of her at a traffic light and see what was going on. But I never could, and she vanished in a cloud of diesel smoke. Perhaps I'll never know. I don't work again tomorrow, but when I do, I'll keep a sharp lookout for a white pickup truck filled to the roof with happy meals.