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I called Nan, my blind friend, during the weekend and said, “I have to get out of the house. Do you have time this week for a social visit? I have some customer loyalty coupons and specials for fast food— how do you feel about breakfast at Wendy’s?”

Nan has a pretty standard response to my phone calls.

“Ooooooooo,” she says.

We agreed I would pick her up on Monday at 9 a.m.

The teenager usually doesn’t emerge from her room until after 10 a.m. I decide to surprise Nan with a trip to Family Dollar, too.

I need a notebook for my volunteer role as Communications Director for Aspire To Autonomy, Inc., and for my notes as a partner in Thrive Public Relations.

Part of the fun of going to Nan’s building right now is the massive construction project they have going on. Her building has seven stories and they are removing the bricks on the south-most wall. The scaffolding they have is like an erector set for Godzilla.

Nan gets in my car, and despite the temperature already in the 80s and the humidity above 50%, I don’t have the air conditioning on in the car. The breeze is nice, the sun roof is open and the air conditioning is too cold.

We plot our order via the Wendy’s app— I order a small vanilla Frosty-chino (on special for $1) and the maple bacon chicken croissant (free with any mobile order). I want to try the chicken honey butter biscuit, too, but I can’t pass up free.

Nan orders the traditional sausage, egg and cheese combo. We order it on the standard bun as croissants can be greasy and flat and a biscuit might be crumbly. When you are planning a car picnic with a blind person, ease of handling is the primary concern.

We make hers the combo. We can split the seasoned potatoes and she gets an unsweetened ice tea as her beverage. Like me, Nan doesn’t like sweetened tea.

Our total for breakfast comes to $6.77.

We split the tab.

We drive over to Wendy’s, go through the drive through and discover that the Wendy’s parking lot has a lot of shade. Things we never noticed before the Coronavirus pandemic.

Surprisingly, the croissant is not a traditional croissant. It is square. This pleases me as I hate when fast food restaurants use American style croissants for sandwiches.

Nan’s sandwich appears to have a real egg on it.

I really like having chicken for breakfast as I am not a “breakfast meat” person. The maple bacon fills the whole car with maple scent. Nan finds it too strong. It tastes like table syrup.

Nan and I agree the potatoes are amazing. Nan reported that her sandwich was better than the average fast food breakfast sandwich.

We both think the potatoes are dangerous.

And I dribbled Frosty-cino down my white t-shirt.

We were very pleased with our experience.