Wasting Time is about 3 friends who are doing nothing but wasting time on a school night. Instead of studying or working on school projects, these 3 friends decide to head to the local gas station to get food. As usual, most nights during your college years are spent Wasting Time.

“I fucking hate going to Tom’s,” I blurted out to Mike and Steve, despite knowing that there was no where else to go get food at this time at night in York. Plus, we needed to get at least one more vanilla dutch before calling it a night. But forget about the dutch for a minute, the only place to go get food after midnight was Tom’s, Sheetz, or the McDonalds in the city, but everyone knows not to go to that McDonalds unless you want to be harassed by the cross dresser that works the drive thru this late at night. I remember the last time I went to that McDonalds; the cross dresser complained and bitched to me that I was yelling into the loud speaker, and that my music must have been too loud. Maybe I was a little loud, or maybe I was a little drunk, but I do know I wasn’t yelling. Aside from dealing with the cross dresser, if I go to McDonalds, I would have to order from the late night menu. I hate ordering from the late menu, because I never know what’s on the late night menu. McDonalds makes the assumption that everyone that comes to the drive thru at night knows exactly what’s on the menu. I figured that one out when they decided against putting the late night menu outside. So when ordering food, I have to play the guessing game, since I’m not a McDonald’s junky.

My thoughts were interrupted by Mike’s question, “Where else would you want to go? You and I both know that if we drive anywhere else it’s going to take at least 20 minutes. People don’t know how to drive around here. We’ll be home in 10 minutes if we just head to Tom’s, besides we need dutches.” As we began walking through the beer cans, and rocks that covered the grass we call our yard, we were almost struck by two stray cats that decided to make love underneath one of the cars that were parked in the backyard. Nearly tripping over a stray flea infested cat I yelled out “Stupid ass cats. I bet those are the same fucking cats that made all this noise last night. Those mother fuckers kept me up like all night.” As the three of us got into the car, I quickly regretted not grabbing a jacket, or even a sweatshirt to protect me from the cold air that was waiting to greet me. "How about that global warming," I said. As usual, I had to sit in the back seat, cramped, because Steve always gets shotgun, he says it’s cause he’s 6’6, but I think it’s something he made up. As Mike turned the keys in the ignition, I could feel the frigid air blast out of the vents. “Turn the fucking heat on,” Steve shouted.

“The heat is on, the car has to warm up before it starts shooting out warm air,” Mike rebutted. As Mike drove down Jackson Street, heading to the Tom’s gas station, he began flipping through the stations, and of course there wasn’t one good song on the radio. “I hope you guys enjoy listening to the same song on all three stations. We can either listen to Promiscuous Girl, which is on all three pop stations, or we can listen to 98.5 the peak,” Mike said.  “I’ll take control of the radio,” Steve said as he quickly began flipping through the stations, hoping to find a new song, but had no luck.  I hate the radio around here I immediately thought. I remembered all the times while driving to work flipping through the radio stations and never finding a song I want to here. Chances are the songs that I would hear during the ride to work; I would hear them again on the ride home from work. I mean these are the same stations that play songs like Ghetto Superstar, and all that Emo garbage. The other day driving home from work 96.9 decided they would play White and Nerdy for three hours consecutively. That would never fly in a market like Philadelphia or New York. I mean occasionally, and I mean occasionally you’ll get lucky, and you’ll hear a good song, but seldom does that occur. I use to listen to 98.5, but lately they have been playing that trashy bar music, that I associate with Murph’s Bar on a Saturday night. Don’t get me wrong, I love Murph’s for Sunday football, happy hours on Friday, and going during the summertime, but I don’t think the Murph’s got the Memo that their establishment isn’t a night club. You know the music I’m talking about, the songs like: Take Me Home Tonight, Call on Me, or some Twisted Sister We Ain’t Gone Take it. The type of songs that when they get played, every girl in the place gets excited telling their friend’s “Oh My Gawd, that’s my song!” But the thing that pisses me off the most was when these radio stations played the same songs on all three stations, or when they all had commercials going at the same time. “Are we all going in?” I heard Mike ask, trying to determine if he should turn off his car. Before even responding, both me and Steve began to get out of the car, and started to walk inside the store.

Opening the door to Tom’s, I could smell the hotdogs that were being rolled on the rolling machine. The rolling machine was loaded with hotdogs, sausages, kielbasas, that were being rolled in a similar manner a joint roller rolls joints, and I can guarantee those things have been rolling for hours. I never knew what the rolling machine was called, I wonder if there is even a name for the hotdog rolling machine. The lady at the counter saw the three of us walk in, and instantly I noticed that we were the first costumers she’s seen in about ten minutes, and she hated it. It didn’t take the dirty looks, or the comments she made about walking on her floor, to know that.

“I just moped the floors, don’t dirty them up, and if you think you can come in here and order 20 hotdogs, your wrong,” she screamed. I didn’t give her much mind, I just wanted a drink, and besides she’s the one working at Tom’s, most likely making less than 6 dollar an hour, so she can go fuck herself.

I always hate trying to figure out what I want to drink when I go to Tom’s, that’s why prior to getting inside, it’s important to have a plan. I didn’t fuck around this time, I knew exactly what I wanted; I headed straight to the chocolate milk, and grabbed the last liter container. The soothing taste of the milk, mixed in with the chocolate syrup is always pleasing, especially when the only thing in the house to drink is beer. A good, refreshing drink is as almost as good as good sex.

“WE’LL BE IN THE CAR, AND WE GOT A BOX OF DUTCHES” Steve shouted across the store to me, making the attendant more furious. For a second I had forgotten about them, I was more concerned about getting my milk. I decided I’ve seen enough, so I headed towards the counter. Knowing I would regret it later, I grabbed a Snickers candy bar. CAANDDDDY BAAAAR! I remembered the scene from a movie; I think it was Super Troopers, when the person was like “CAANDDDDY BAAAAR.”

“That will be $3.25,” the white trash looking woman said behind the counter. I scrambled through the wallet, grabbing out the first five I saw. I always hated purchasing something, and having to deal with change. I actually hate the concept of change, especially pennies. Pennies are like the Mondays of change, no one likes them. I even remember hearing a thing on the news about the government was considering to stop producing that coin.

“Here’s your change,” the woman said handing me the money. Terrific I thought, she couldn’t even had given me 3 quarters; instead she gave me some nickels and dimes, so when I walk I’m going to have coins jingle in my pocket. Besides who the fuck wants nickels and dimes, they are almost as worthless as much as pennies. “Have a good night,” I said to the attendant, but truthfully I really wanted to tell her to go fuck herself for giving me dirty looks.

I was ready to get home, and watch some television. Hopefully HBO or Starz will have a good movie on. I remembered watching a movie the other night about some people that had to be around my age getting lost in the Outback, and they got tortured by this man that reminded me of Crocodile Dundee. His talking, walking, and looks were similar to the 80’s or 90’s movie star, but he didn’t act like him. This man tortured and tricked these college aged students. The one girl got it the worst; she not only had been stabbed in the chest through the back while sitting in the front seat of a car, but she also had her fingers cut off, and eventually died after getting a knife pushed through her spinal cord. She was straight up tortured, and during this movie, I couldn’t stop but think, shit if I had to deal with half the stuff these 3 people dealt with, I probably would have given up, and asked for the man to kill me. If my memory serves me correctly, I think he burned her body. However, I could be making that one up; I was fucked up when I saw that movie. “Choad better call in the morning, otherwise I’m going to go down to Kerry’s house, and I’m going to drag his Choad ass out of bed. We have a HUGE presentation tomorrow, that we have to go over for Operation Management,” I heard Mike say, not really knowing what was going on, since I hadn’t been listening to what Mike and Steve conversation was about.

I had been so caught up thinking about that movie that I noticed we went a different way home. We were driving down one of the residential roads to get to Jackson Street. Besides a few street lights, the only other thing giving off light was the Grantley Fire Station, and a home here and there. I noticed Mike was in a rush to get home, when I saw he was driving over 55mph. I could have figured that one out without looking at the speed he was driving; you pick up on those kinds of things when you’ve lived with someone for four years. I didn’t blame him; I wanted to get home too. I wanted to drink my drink, and puff on a dutch, and I was sure both of them were thinking the same thing. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT,” I heard Mike yell out as this dark creature started running across the street, and went right in front of the car.

BAAAAAAAAAAM!

“HOLY SHIT, I THINK YOU JUST HIT A DOG,” I exclaimed, as I watched the creature run into the closet backyard.

            “That wasn’t a dog; I think it was a cat. I saw it run off into that direction, behind some house. We need to go back, and check it out to see if it’s dying or if it’s in pain. If it’s in pain, I’ll kick it in its fucking head to put it out of its misery,” Steve mentioned. I started to recall about the time Choad, Christian, and Steve had gone skiing, or snowboarding on a Wednesday night. I don’t know when, but at one point they had finished a handle of Rain Vodka between the three of them. But on the way home, driving down 83 a stupid deer had run into the middle of the highway, and Christian’s huge redneck F350 truck struck the deer sending it flying to the side of the road. Since he was a hunter Christian pulled his car to the side of the road, and they watched as this deer, which was clearly in pain, begin to die slowly. Feeling sorry for the deer, Christian mentioned he was going to kick the deer in its head to end its life. Apparently the word from Jackson was that Christian gave it a good running kick, breaking the deer’s neck, and sending the deer to deer heaven.

            But this wasn’t a deer, this was a cat, or a dog, or some small creature. Maybe it was a cat-dog; maybe it was some creature that hadn’t been discovered yet, whatever it was it had to be dying somewhere. By this point, Mike had turned the car around, and we slowly drove down the street trying to find the creature that made friends with Mike’s car.

“I’m pretty sure it got ran over by the tire. Did you feel the car make that bump like it ran over something?” Mike said. “Nah bro, it hit either the car or license plate the tires didn’t get it,” Steve quickly responded. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see the creature suffer; I think it would be kind of crazy to see Steve kick this creature in the head. Most might consider someone wanting to see this crazy, maybe sick, but this would truly help this poor creature. I mean when a horse would break a leg, or suffer an injury in the past; the owner would often put the horse down. Or when people do those treks through the artic with those snow dogs, and a dog gets injured, the dog often meets the same fate.  “Fuck that cat, let’s get home and waste some time,” Mike said as he began driving back to the house.