Dear People Who Run The Diamond Shamrock Down The Street,

Let me first of all concede that this all could be a misunderstanding. I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed, so I could be wrong. That being said, your "Open 24 Hours" sign is quite misleading.

When I see a sign that says "Open 24 Hours" at a convenience store, I assume that it means that it is open 24 consecutive hours, 7 days a week. Now, this assumption has been wrong before. The McDonald's right by the University of Houston says "Open 24 Hours" but implies "On weekdays cause UH is dead on weekends." However, in this case it is a Tuesday night and therefore even if that is what you mean (though I don't know why it would be, since UH is some distance from here), it does not apply to tonight when I showed up to satiate a tortured addiction to Reece's FastBreak candy bars and you weren't open.

As you weren't open, and I was looking through a glass window that says "Open 24 Hours," I must still assume that there must be some implication that I, in my late-night feeblemindedness, missed. Perhaps you meant 24 hours a week? That doesn't seem right, though, because you're always open when I'm on my way to and coming back from work, which would imply at least 14 hours a day. So would that be 14 hours on one day and 10 hours on the next, making you open 24 hours every other day? I'm pretty sure that you're always open every day when I come home from work, so it would have to be 14+14 hours and your sign doesn't state "Open 28 Hours." So, I thought, perhaps it means open in non-consecutive 24 hour incriments. Say, for instance, 24 hours on, 1 hour off, ad infinum. Were that the case though, approximately every 24 days you would not be open on my drive to work (if it's 24-1, 12 days if it's 24-2) and, to date, that has not been the case. Now, it's possible that you mean Open At Least 24 Hours In Non-consecutive Increments and that you are sure to be open when I'm on my way to and from work. If that is true, it's a bit silly claim to make without specifying when that 1 or 2 hours you are not open at all. Granted, that would be a little like a shift table ("We're off from 10-11 on Sunday, 11-12 on Monday, 12-1 on Tuesday, etc") and would be a little tedious, but the more information you could supply the better off we'd all be, I think.

Otherwise, you see, you end up with snarky letters like this one from a FastBreakless addict who want a fraggin' candy bar at 12:30 in the morning but can't cause you're sign fraggin' lies (or is otherwise not-entirely-accurate if there is some method to your FastBreak-denying madness... madness, I tell you... madness)

Sincerely,
One of the Authors of the Blog You Do Not Read