The Curious Case of The Cookies And Cream Latte

If you're like me, when you're going about your business here in town, occasionally you'll see something you can't explain. A shoe in the middle of the road.  An abandoned couch.  A toy left behind at the store.  Sure, you can probably fill in the blanks of what you think happened, but sometimes what you think might have been happening,...isn't.

So much of what I do here at the stations is based in fact.  What happened, where it happened, when it happened, that kind of stuff.  Events, schedules, that kind of thing.  It's not a job where you judge or speculate.  You just report what happened, and that's it.  But this morning, I found something a little silly, and thought it would be fun to do that. Let's speculate...about this.

When I drove into the stations this morning, I had to make sure to drive my car around something I saw in the parking lot.

Immediately I thought... what in the heck?  A random drink, carefully placed on the ground? Was it left by someone the day before in the sales department?

If it was tossed out, that was a heck of a landing.  But it looks like it was just placed there.  Almost...carefully set down, to pick up  later.

For context, that's where parking space lines are. So it wasn't something that was left behind by someone peeling through in a car, I don't think. I examined the drink... a cookies and cream latte with the name of a female starting with E.  The name was actually on there, but I won't share it in case she's embarrassed.  So that at least eliminates anyone working here. It was definitely someone stopping in the parking lot...for whatever reason.

Now at zero dark thirty, there isn't a whole lot of creativity running through my noggin.  But I had to ask myself how it got there, and why it was left behind.  Was someone parked there, changing a tire?  Was there a breakdown and they just left the drink behind? Or was someone hanging out in the parking lot (doesn't seem too fun to hang out there, but...I don't know) and they just forgot it?  It's almost halfway full (seems like a waste not to finish it), and quite a distance from the dumpster - but not far enough to warrant not throwing it in there.  So I don't know if they were trying to litter, or if they just got careless.

Let's speculate.  Tuesday night there were some rainstorms overnight.  Maybe E and her friends were driving home after a rousing game of Yahtzee at Church Club.  A tire was blown on her 1997 Honda Civic.  It's raining, no one can see anything, and of course nobody has a flashlight, a rain poncho, or an umbrella. Now what?  Well, better call Dad.  Dad comes, the tire is replaced, and E and her friends decide to head home. But then... ALIENS DESCEND!  The pod like object hovers over the parking lot in the pouring rain, releasing a single beam of light onto our poor suspecting latte drinker.  E and her party are drawn into the light, taken off for observation by the nefarious alien evil overlords... who make one critical error. They left the evidence behind!

Well.  I guess we'll never know what really happened, and why E left her drink behind.  It's one of those long lost Sedalia mysteries, like so many lone sneakers in the middle of the road. I'm happy to hear your thoughts, though.  As long as they are silly and probably wrong, that is.

Mysteriously yours,
Behka