Next time I'll tell them, 'Hold the fly!'

I'm not much of a drive-through window kind of person. The lines are long, the help is curt and I must say the food leaves a little to be desired.

But the coffee. Well, you just can't beat it for the price. Especially on a night when the temperature has dipped right along with your core temp.

It was on just such a night that I pulled into a fast-food drive-through. When I saw that the line was down to two cars, I thought surely the gods of caffeine were smiling upon me.

I drove up to the speaker and said in the happiest of voices, "I'd like a large coffee, please." I may not be a regular patron, but I pride myself in being a pleasant drivethrough customer.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the gal at the window said, "but we're out of regular coffee. Do you want decaf, or shall we make a fresh pot?"

Like that's a choice. "I'll hold out for the regular," I said. I then paid her and drove up to the stall where they send folks to wait out all of eternity for their order.

Having decided to be patient, I sat and watched the cars moving down the street. Although five minutes had passed, I was still not the least bit cranky.

Not yet.

After 10 minutes I felt my mood slipping. After 11, I was irked, and by the 12th minute I was brewing as hot as the forgotten pot that surely waited inside and I finally stormed the door.

The first thing I saw was my pot of regular coffee, and the second was a full staff, including two associates and a manager, standing around talking.

From that point on, everything happened in slow motion. The drive-through gal noticed me first. Her co-worker must have seen the look on her face, for she turned to look my way and their gaze was then followed by the manager's.

Although they didn't say it, they must have thought, "Oh no!" as they realized that they had forgotten an unlucky patron in their infamous "pull over here and we'll tend to you in a minute" stall.

While I wasn't in the mood to sing zipa dee-doo-dah or dance around with sheer bliss, I hadn't planned to make a scene.

I just planned to approach the counter, take a gander at the full pot and see if I could get served.

That's when things went awry.

For as I was making my approach, there was a fly lurking in the distance. Perhaps he had been perched upon the cheeseburgers. Perhaps hanging with the french fries, or dare we speculate, digging for debris in the Dumpster.

Either way, he apparently had noticed me and decided to make me his next stopping point. Out of nowhere he came at the speed of sound (because flies can do that) and made a beeline for my right nostril.

Oblivious to the fly's intentions, I prepared to ask the associates if they had any plan of pouring my coffee in this decade just as the fly flew upward with the force of a space shuttle and went straight into my sinuses.

I'm sure that somewhere in the world there is a woman who possesses enough class to handle such a situation with an ounce of decorum. I, however, am not that woman.

I had many thoughts up to and including "Oh no!" as I began slapping not just my right nostril but my entire face in an attempt to rid my nasal passages of the intrusion.

Unaware of the fly, the associates must have thought that I'd been driven mad by my lack of caffeine. One grabbed a cup and another quickly poured, and with all of the fear that can go into serving a cup of coffee to a mad woman, they sat it on the counter before me and backed quickly away as I stood there making an "arghh!" sound and continued to slap myself about the face.

Just then the fly departed my nostril as quickly as he'd entered it and went on about his day, which surely included going back to the fries.

Perhaps there are things that one could say at a time such as that. Perhaps I could have explained that it was a fly we were dealing with and not a psychotic fit.

Instead I simply picked up my cup and went about my night. I hear the associates came away from it with a little therapy and are all the better for the experience.

Meanwhile, I hear they're naming a new coffee item after me called the McNut. It's large, it's fully caffeinated, and word has it they're serving it in their "pull over here and we'll tend to you in a minute" stall.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book "Are We There Yet?" You can reach her at www.loriclinch. com.