That fast food drive thru that knows you better than you know yourself.
It’s why they forgot the cheese on your cheeseburger.
It’s why they decaffed you on your morning coffee.
It’s why they served you a Diet instead of a Fully Leaded soda.
It’s why they interpreted your “Big Mac with cheese combo with fries and a drink” as “A Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza with a 2 liter bottle of Diet soda.”
It’s why they sold you a franchise when all you actually ordered was two kid’s meals for your brats and a cup of water for yourself.
It’s why they awarded you with a contract to build a massive subterranean detention center for political dissidents to be constructed beneath a long abandoned corporate campus-a relic of the biotech boom at the end of the 20th century, if you’re curious-when you merely ordered a milkshake.
It’s not because the milkshake machines are on the blink like they talk about on the local TV news.
It’s not because the zit covered teenager working the point-of-sale is sneaking hits off a weed vape.
They do these things because they know you better than you know yourself.
They’re not deceived by your liar’s mouthings, by your asinine pantomime of a timid false morality, and, frankly, they’re just not interested in your convoluted self-deceptions, nor are they even slightly convinced by your vomitous pretensions of politeness, courtesy, kindness-all your boring shit!
They know what you really want.
They shove it down your throat.
You cry and struggle . . . but you choke it all down.
You didn’t spit once.
You’ll be back for more.
The only downside, of course, is that prices have gone up.
Yeah, it sucks.
Everything’s more expensive these days.
You start telling yourself, “I should hit up the grocery store. Prepare more meals at home. Really plan it all out for the week, y’know?”
Oh, yes, you forced yourself to make a shopping list, which felt like crawling across glass for miles and miles-
After a long, hard march across a packed parking lot you entered the grocery store . . . only to emerge hours later with a receipt for a Home Atomics Kit. You know, so you can construct a nuclear bomb, keep the taxman away from you, declare your property a breakaway republic, that kind of thing. It’s a big purchase, so they’ll ship it to your house by drone in three stages.
Yup.
Everything’s fast food these days . . .
