Alright, so let me tell you about this whole chipotle napkin situation. It sounds dumb, right? A napkin. But man, it taught me a thing or two. I was at Chipotle, you know, getting my usual burrito bowl – extra guac, obviously. Just a regular Tuesday, nothing special. I’m chowing down, minding my own business.
Then, BAM! This idea hits me. Like, a really good one. One of those lightbulb moments you read about. Or maybe it was just a phone number someone important rattled off super quick while I was juggling my fork and a drink. Point is, I needed to write it down, like, RIGHT THEN. My phone? Dead. Of course it was. Classic me.
The Great Napkin Scramble
So, I’m looking around, frantic. No pen, no paper, nothing. My eyes land on it – the glorious Chipotle napkin. You know the ones, kinda thin, brown, probably made of recycled hopes and dreams. I grabbed one, maybe two, just in case. And I think I found one of those stubby golf pencils they sometimes have by the cutlery, or maybe I just used the side of a plastic fork to scratch something onto it. Desperate times, you know?
I started scribbling like a madman. Pouring out this genius thought, or trying to get that number down before it vanished from my brain. I felt pretty resourceful, not gonna lie. “Ha! Take that, universe!” I thought. “I’ve got my trusty Chipotle napkin!”
Oh, the confidence. The sheer, unadulterated belief that this flimsy piece of paper was gonna be my savior. I folded it up carefully, shoved it in my pocket, feeling like I’d just cracked the code or something. Probably got some salsa on it for good measure. My “record” was secure, or so I thought.
Later that day, or maybe the next, I remembered my brilliant note. I fished that napkin out of my pocket. And what did I find? A disaster. It was crumpled, a bit damp (probably from pocket sweat, gross, I know), and the writing? Smudged. Illegible. The “genius” idea was a blur. That “important number”? Looked more like a toddler’s doodle. The salsa stain didn’t help either, made one of the digits look like an abstract art piece.
I tried, man. I really tried to decode it. Held it up to the light, squinted, even tried to remember what I was thinking. Nothing. Gone. Vanished into the ether, all thanks to that useless napkin and my own dumb unpreparedness.
- The brilliant idea? Poof.
- That crucial phone number? Might as well have been written in invisible ink.
That was it for me. That was the turning point. Right then and there, standing over that sad, stained napkin, I swore: never again. No more relying on emergency napkins or the back of receipts.
So, what did I do? I went out and bought a small, sturdy notebook. And a good pen that actually writes. Sounds simple, I know. Like, “duh, why weren’t you doing that before?” But sometimes you need that little kick in the pants, that one frustrating moment, to actually change a habit. That Chipotle napkin, in all its flimsy glory, was my kick in the pants.
Now, that little notebook goes everywhere with me. And you know what? I haven’t lost a single “genius” idea since. Or at least, if I have, it’s my own brain’s fault, not some soggy piece of paper. It’s funny, the things that end up teaching you a lesson, right? Who knew a Chipotle napkin could spark a whole new system for me? Wild.
