McDonald's and Darwin

Geez, blog writing is a bitch. Now I am getting dinged because I don't post pictures and my prose is too dense. Sigh.

So this is for Christine...













So it is 2003 and I've been out of work for a VERY long time and quite broke and unhappy. I have a few dollars cash that is all I have that is not tied up some which way and I decide go to McDonald's to buy the cheapest hamburger for lunch I can.

I am standing in line and miserable and whilst in line I become aware of these noxious yard monsters and their intensely awful house frau mother. What draws my attention is the puling of all three...

"Mommy, I want..." in a hellish chorus from the midget snot machines and a nasal whine from ol' ma as she confronts our order taker.

"Well I need a minute to decide..."

WTF?

"What have you been doing the last ten minutes of this grueling exercise of people herding?", I think to myself. But before I can answer the voice in my head, Hagatha starts in on the poor cashier.

"You know the shakes are a rip off? If you buy a large shake, the price per ounce is less than a small shake. What if I want a small shake? The price should be the same." Not content with our cashier's weak "if you insist" smile, Haggy presses her point.

"Don't you think?" A high pitched nasal assault that certainly has the local dog's ears bleeding.

"It's a total rip off. I can't believe it. I think that your company thinks we are all stupid. Don't you agree?"

Having stood in this line for at least ten minutes and being hungry and tired and broke, I step forward.

"Pardon me, but if you think you are being ripped off, perhaps you should order something else?" I say somewhat evenly despite my desire to bludgeon her with a "Happy Meal".

She turns slowly to me and sizes me up.

"Well, EXCUSE me, but if I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."

Shazam! She told me. My god, the internal bleeding!

"Well, EXCUSE me," I acidly replied, "if I was to give you my opinion. I would have to say, judging from you and your spawn, Charles Darwin was wrong."

She was taken off kilter, noticeably shocked by my obnoxious, but clearly educated insult. She then huffed, puffed and dragged her awful, loud and whiny children out of line. As I watched, I noticed the rest of the line did not disapprove.

I stepped up to place my measly burger order. The cashier looked at me smiling and she kind of mouthed the words "it's on the house."

I ate like a king that lunch. Or at lease like Mayor McCheese.