Fast Food

Having a need for a quick lunch in between errands yesterday, I stopped for a burger at a drive-through. In years gone by this would have been routine, but I haven't had to do such a thing in a long time now, due to one thing or another. A revelation here: I'm out of the Fast Food habit!

So it was a bit of a surprise that a single cheeseburger, fries and a Diet Coke would be almost $4 at McDonalds. Even more unsettling was that I couldn't really find the meat. And there wasn't enough salt on the fries...

All of this might be considered to be progress by some. More healthful. Less enticing. But I'm disappointed.

Growing up in the dawn of the fast food era I was hopelessly addicted. The notion of stopping someplace for fries and a coke was so much a part of what I thought being a teenager should be about that I was completely taken with the idea. Mind you, there was very little else about 'being a teenager' that I was particularly taken with, but for some reason, this little bit stuck long after most people had outgrown that sort of thing and moved on to salads. And when I moved on, literally, to an island in rural Alaska where there was NO fast food available I experienced more than a bit of "withdrawal."

For years afterward, any trip 'outside' absolutely had to start with a burger and fries. It was so bad that my parents once stopped, on their way to the airport to pick me up, at a local McDonalds and convinced the manager to sell them the separate parts of a Big Mac, just so they could put it together, hot and delicious and not soggy, at the airport. (They brought their motor home, complete with kitchen facilities, in case you were wondering. I have incredibly wonderful parents!)

But now it's come to this.

End-of-an-era sort of thing. Sad, really. Dare I say it?

It just wasn't that good.