Starved for the Bucks

I didn’t mean to drink so much coffee, or to be so neurotic. If I’d gone easy on either one, my 3.5-hour drive yesterday would have been pleasant, and the right amount of time. 

But there I was, winding through the hill country with a full bladder, about one hour into the drive. I have a thing about only stopping at places on the right-hand side of the road; anything else is not worth the yielding and u-turns and frontage roads. I was also tired and had convinced myself an eggnog latte was all I needed in life.

Should be easy enough, right? A Starbucks on the right-hand side of the highway? Sounds like a cinch — there are more than 13,000 stores worldwide. If DQ is the Texas stop sign, Starbucks is a normal place’s stop sign.

But, no. I’m driving north on I-35, hitting Austin traffic, and knowing that there are probably 20 coffeehouses within 10 miles of my car, just hidden behind slow semis or palm reader billboards. When I see a road sign with my smiling mermaid, I exit the highway, and there is no follow-up sign. I need the follow-up with arrows. Back on I-35, I’m uncomfortable and irritable and the radio is no help – annoying DJs and worse Christmas music.

So I obey the next mermaid with its follow-up arrows – which happened to be one mile down, to the left – and I finally make it to a bathroom and my eggnog latte, and I get back on course 30 minutes later. With my body now drained and slowly being refilled with caffeine, and a CD playing instead of the radio, my irritation wanes.

Bob Schneider and I were just singing about the sun when it shines and the moon at night, when I invented a genius solution. A new era of advertising will bring the billboards into the cars.

All I had needed was a "Cupholders, prepare to befilled. Exit 353" billboard. But instead I saw a different variation of "Tall, outdoors type seeks relationship" every few miles. With my device, pointless billboards will be obsolete. People will program in their preferences and interests into the personal billboard monitor … BillBill …we’ll call it. And they’ll also program in their favorite songs, artists or music types. As the car travels, the BillBill will notify passengers of any preferences in the area or songs on the radio.

I understand with things like TomToms or XM radio this invention isn’t quite as cool, but I don’t have either of those, so I’d rather re-invent the wheel. Life would be much less stressful if my car knew I liked Starbucks, Chipotle, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Because that’s all I needed in life, after my eggnog latte. A little "After the Love Has Gone" action.