Cup holders — it all began a few days ago when I was unable to put my drive-thru dollar drinks in my cup holders. It was a fiasco witnessed by the drive-thru attendant as she held my much needed drinks out the window patiently waiting for me to take them out of her hands and drive away.
I recognized I was probably holding up the line and affecting the drive-thru team’s serve time efficiency average as I fumbled around in my car focusing on those center-console cup holders. After all, this should be a quick and easy handoff!
It wasn’t the engineering of the cup holders that was the problem. It wasn’t that I had other already-used-cups filling the holders that was causing the delay.
What was making me scramble at the last second was a scenario that plays out in my vehicle more than I’d like to admit. It’s a constant battle between maintaining the availability of convenience or utilizing a place to put things other than cups for safekeeping.
During harvest, my cup holders are generally used for the later, a mobile junk drawer of sorts.
Since we are currently “knee-deep” in our fall harvest, you can generally find washers, nuts, bolts, tiny tubes, fuses, tools and a lot of thingamajigs residing in those cup holders. Sometimes the items are small and flat enough to put a cup on top of and I can get away with driving around knowing that my cup and beverage will stay in its assigned spot.
Other times, I’m fumbling around in a drive-thru trying to relocate ears of corn, scoop out soybeans or find a better “safe spot” for a small, yet essential item that could potentially stop harvest if it was misplaced.
Where does one put these items to make space for cups? I could put everything on the floorboard, but risk losing that little oddly-shaped essential “thing” that is staying safe in the confines of the cup holder.
I could potentially put these items in the side pocket of my car door. But it’s also full of even larger items that should have been put back in a toolbox.
I could temporarily put the ears of corn in my lap then throw them away once I get to the trashcan at the end of the drive-thru. But maybe my husband is saving them for a good reason. Besides that’s only the corn. What about all of the other things?
I could just leave everything where it is and give my passenger the responsibility of keeping both cups from spilling.
All of these scenarios whirl through my mind as I briefly take in the view from my rearview mirror knowing full well that I’m holding up traffic and keeping hungry people from their fries.
That is until I hear an angelic voice ask, “Would you like a drink carrier for these??”
Oh, if she only knew!
I know as soon as the fall harvest wraps up my vehicle will get a good cleaning and all of the items currently residing in my cup holders and door pockets will have new homes. My insulated mugs and drive-thru drinks will once again easily fit into my cup holders
But until then, I’m sure this scene will play out at least one more time this fall. And I will again drive away reminding myself with a chuckle, “That’s just life during harvest time.”
“Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service. Kim Baldwin is a McPherson County farmer.
