U N N A M E D
1
M.
Ziggy had always thought that it should really be a big D instead.
He thought it was sociological, lexicological (as far as glossology could be logical) and tautological non-sense. Had the world gone mad? Could the world not see that it should really be a big D instead?
He rubbed his eyes and decided he needed some strong coffee and a good breakfast. Or maybe just something strongly analgetic, like the initial effects of a well calculated blow to the head. Ziggy waited in the queue for any one of these things.
The reasons it was all that non-sense, he thought, were these:
Socially speaking, Mc has always classically been the prefix of a surname and not strictly part of the actual recognised naming of families. It does however recognise the nationality or lineage of the given family or individual. Classically, it relates to Ireland or Scotland and not, as is normally protested, concerning a ghastly mix up between Raymond Albert Kroc, Dick, Mac and a Multimixer milkshake maker. It was simply a prefix, nothing more.
Speaking from the point of view of a librarian, secretary or those crazy guys that wrote the dictionary, quite simply, you wouldn't allocate McCarthy, McDougall and McKesson all under 'M.' Or would you? He wasn't acquainted with anybody who could logically sort things out beyond the level of advanced university student, so Ziggy wasn't too sure about the validity of this point. Advanced university students being the ones that can't organise anything not to do with a lot of drinking, dancing, getting up late with a headache, not getting up, and drinking. Also, he couldn't remember the last time he used a real dictionary since computers did everything except actually write your thesis for you.
And tautologically the Mc in front of every single item and the need to include the use of this prefix every time you wanted the guy in the box to understand your order annoyed the hell out of Ziggy.
Fred Turner has a lot of explaining to do, he thought. Ziggy still waited, sat hunched over the steering wheel. He felt the car roll slightly even with the brakes applied fully.
Damn.
He'd have to get the brakes checked again. He was beginning to suspect that the guys at the garage had syphoned his brake fluid, probably some fuel, and nicked the spare change left in the glove box. He'd apply the hand-brake if he hadn't lost it someplace.
Ziggy's car was a calculated retort to all those who told him that shocking pink just wasn't his colour. But from his point of view, if the King could look good in a 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood, then so could he. Assuming, of course, that Ziggy in fact owned a 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood. If he did, and was in it now, then it would be a complete lie to say that he was in a McDonalds drive through waiting to be served. Even if he took off the wing mirrors and a fair bit of the paint job in manoeuvring it through, he'd probably still get it completely stuck and Fred Turner would lose a lot of business. No, he'd have to do with something that didn't hog one and a half lanes of British motorway, or one and a half Olympic sized swimming pools worth of diesel, and it would have to be affordable. Like a Golf Gti. Assuming, laughingly, that Ziggy even had the money to buy a pink Golf Gti. He had in fact bought a sickly green Mk2 Golf Gti that no one else wanted to go near, this 'no one else' had a weak stomach you see, and sprayed it pink to prove his waning point. Interestingly enough, at this very moment an oddly familiar man was playing oddly familiar songs to the clientele of The Domain of the King Bar & Grill, on the other side of the galaxy.
Ziggy needed something quick, a McDonald's coffee or a blow to the head, and he didn't mind which. It was all the same to him. He needed to wake up swiftly in order not make a fool of himself during his audition which was in… he checked his fancy hybrid digital/analogue watch… fifteen minutes ago. He needed to hurry.
He got all tense at the wheel as if he was about to slam his foot into the accelerator a nanosecond after something, anything, went green or scared the crap out of him in his moment of absurdity.
'Good morning!' vented the man in the box, which was by now next to Ziggy's opened window.
Several things happened at this moment. The air tentatively carried the not-yet-quite-broken-but-getting-there nasal shrieking of the man in the box in the form of vibrations. Even the vibrations didn't quite like their lot in life and for a fleeting moment considered mass suicide. Fortunately, for them at least, they dissipated in Ziggy's ears. His ears, who really couldn't be bothered at this hour, passed it onto the brain to see what it could make of it. Unfortunately, the pensive state in which his brain was in just prior to this malarkey made it panic and shoot the garbled message off into the spinal cord who immediately thought, 'oh how nice, its been a long time since the doctor checked for unconditioned reflexes with his cute little hammer.'
Fortunately the car in front had just left when the resulting 'knee-jerk' reaction caused the tyres to squeal, the car to accelerate like a half price handbag out of a Selfridges sale, and nearly not hit a two-inch tall new born cherry tree planted ceremoniously by a blind child the previous day for a McDonalds' charity event.
Funnily enough, one of the few things going through the mind of the man in the box was bewilderment as to why that was the fifth guy to do that this morning. Also, the last thought radiating from the cherry tree at the moment of its demise was, 'this exact thing happened to me the other day you know.' If we knew why, or even how, the cherry tree had thought this, then we would know so much more about the universe we call home.