Yesterday I was traveling with my laptop and needed to find a place that offers free Wifi so I could do a little bit of research online. I pulled into a McDonald’s and saw that they had a sign on the door that they had Wifi, although the sign indicated that you had to pay for it (which I thought was a practice that had ended a couple of years ago.) But I decided to go ahead to the counter and order a sweet tea and a yogurt parfait, and asked the cashier if they had free Wifi or not. She said that the Wifi was free.

Before I went up to the counter I had scouted around for electrical outlets to plug my laptop into. I knew that I could run it off of the battery if I had to, but I prefer to plug it in, as I’m never sure how long the battery will actually run. So I asked the cashier if there were any electrical outlets that I could plug my laptop into. She replied that there was a jukebox on the other end of the room and that there were electrical outlets there that I could use.

So I went ahead and got my sweet tea and yogurt, and went over to the jukebox. The only electrical outlet near the jukebox was directly behind the jukebox and there was no way I was going to be able to squeeze my arm behind there to plug in my laptop. As you can imagine, I was quite aggravated.

Thinking to myself that I would have gone to Panera Bread if I had known that this was going to happen, I started walking around the restaurant again – this time looking under every table, and at the ceiling. Finally I found two outlets in the ceiling. One was above a table that was occupied, the other was above an available table. So that is where I settled with my laptop and tray. I unpacked my laptop and stood on the bench, trying to reach the outlet. I was about six inches too short. I looked around the restaurant, thinking maybe there might be a tall person available to help, but that was not the case. Well, I climbed up onto the surface of the table and managed to reach the plug. When I finished plugging in the laptop I glanced around again and saw that EVERYONE in the restaurant was staring at me! So I just smiled at everyone, shrugged, climbed down off of the table and sat down and tended to my business.

Thank you McDonald’s, for having Wifi. Now would you please put electrical outlets someplace that grown-ups can reach without having to climb up and stand on your tables? Thank you.