There’re Many Excuses for Eating McDonald’s – These Are Mine

01/11/2017 by J. Nelson

I don’t have to chew as much.
Because what’s chewing when I can chimney-slide it down? From the second my McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder is unsheathed to when I squish ‘n toss the wrapper, I barely have to work my jaw. It’s a true metaphor for American cultural identity: less chewing/more swallowing. And whoever thought up printing “nutritional” information on something with such a limited hand-to-mouth life is a genius!

Don’t look at me; I’m hideous.
Even as I decry such privileged attributes as lazy eating, I’m occasionally swayed by food-matter that requires neither fork nor self-respect. Never mind that I’m hunched in my car, windshield angled at a hedge to hide my private shame. Kookiest part is, the way I wipe my mouth, use my napkin, or react when a chunk falls from my fingers or face is very different than what I exhibit at my own dinner table or in an actual restaurant. It’s the Jekyll and Hyde of posture and manners: as if it would feel right somehow to take off my shirt to eat a Big Mac.

The Feast and the Furious

10/03/2013 by J. Nelson

Slower fast food drive-thru times may indicate less of a shit given

With the furious pace of America’s dumbing down, de-skilling, and low-waging, it’s no surprise that drive-thru speed of service is suffering. Yet after catching sight of a pedestrian nursing a chocolate shake, his facial expression as blank as a feeding infant’s, it suddenly becomes critical that I not have to wait too long for my own. The notion now planted, the countdown from image to intake shouldn’t be longer than six minutes, and two have been annoyingly consumed by the two block drive.

When I finally reach the drive-thru, I’m certain that anything beyond four more minutes would be un-American. So the foreign-American up there pulling various levers and pushing little buttons is just going to have to snap it up. But wait! That’s not a compliant brown person at the window: it’s an uppity white kid! What’s he doing here? Oh, right, he’s one of those college grads pushing lower-skilled workers and immigrants even further down the occupational staircase.

No wonder my Jalapeno Chicken Squeezer isn’t already running down my neck-slide! The chow line is slow ’cause Hamilton just doesn’t care. And he’s not some trophy-collecting, millennial foot-dragger, either: he’s as boxed in as the fast food coworkers with whom he stood last month, demanding a bump in the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Read more

Poverty Pushing Commerce

09/06/2011 by J. Nelson

These days, restaurants and retail outlets vie for food stamp business. Remember No Shoes, No Shirt – No Service? Just pack that silly ‘ol sentiment away with the antique Coca Cola and WHITES ONLY signs!

Source: USA Today

So it’s like that, huh? There are enough poor and low-income people to serve the economy, but not enough economy to serve poor and low-income people. It’s nothing new, really, but even ideas you thought you were used to can stop you in your tracks sometimes. Case in point: fast food corporations are taking advantage of a U.S. Department of Agriculture/FDA loophole that allows disabled, elderly, and homeless people (who lack ability or resources to prepare food) to use Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits at their restaurants. With more than 45 million Americans walking around with SNAP electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards, it’s all the excuse the corporate owners of McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell need to turn SNAP into an almost direct federal subsidy