Fast Food Loves Me!

Ok dudes and dudesses. Time and time again I have stressed the importance of always keeping a keen eye out for positive things that come out of negative situations. Anytime something bad happens, it sucks. You feel sad, angry, sometimes helpless, and sometimes, like there is just no way out. Adversity strikes each and every one of us day in, day out. I’m no different, I get shit on all the time.

Negative situations blow. But the one thing you can always count on, is there WILL be a positive to come from the negative. Sure as shit, you can bank on it just like the sun coming up in the morning. The trick is keeping a watchful eye out for those positives! If you can keep a cool head and an open mind through your times of trial, something good will ALWAYS come up.

Take 1 hour ago in my life as an example. Excited as always for lunch, I doubled the speed limit on my jaunt for my daily McChicken fix. Today I drove exceptionally fast–as I purposefully starved myself this morning, so I would enjoy my McChicken THAT MUCH MORE. McDonalds speaker person, here the fuck I come!

36 minutes after my arrival at the McDonalds drive thru line, I pull up to the 2nd window to finally receive my beloved McChicken. Hungry, weakened, desperate. They call this fast food? It was brutal torture. I could smell my McChicken cooking, but it was just not to be. I was nearly devastated having to wait such incredibly long time.

But then I reasoned with myself and remembered my own advice. “Jim,” I reflected, “this wait time is fucking shitty. Yes, you are hungry, and about to pass out from the lack of McDonald’s chemical matter. Take a couple of deep breaths, and remember… somewhere here lurks a positive. Somewhere, a positive is jumping up and down trying to get my attention.”

Then it happened.

I tearfully watched in wonder as the 2nd window guy shovels a HUGE stack of Splenda in my bag. “Holy shit, that’s easily a dollar or more score!” I thought, as he proceeded to profusely apologize for my agonizing wait time. By the time I get home and run the numbers, I leave McDonalds with $1.40 in Splenda packets. That’s nearly one and a half times the value of the drink itself. Mother fuck yeah!

So you see boys and girls. No matter how shitty the situation, you MUST not lose sight of the fact that something really fucking rad is about to happen. More often than not, you really have to look hard. Sometimes you have to use some imagination. But as long as you make that effort, you can transform the suckiest anything into something much, much better.

So anytime you are feeling blue and feel as though life is not worth living, just give me a call. I’ll calm you down and remind you of one of my age-old life lessons:

life will always make you eat shit. But if you keep some cinnamon in your pocket to sprinkle on it, it becomes more palatable by leaps and bounds.

This is the extent of my criminal activity on this planet. Tonight was my very own personal oceans 15 and shit. So, we all know that a large unsweet tea at Burger King costs 99 cents. Tonight, I asked for “a whole bunch of Splenda” and was handed 28 packets by the nice lady.

I thought hell yes, and stomped the gas pedal.

So, after thoroughly enjoying my Burger King, I immediately began researching. A quick search for Splenda packets led me to a website selling 100 packet Splenda for $10.42, as depicted in this screen grab. The red arrows should highlight precisely where the price is located:

The above red arrows depict this price I found on a simple Google search for Splenda packets.

So, –ok like, 5 hours has gone by since above so I’m not sure where I was going with this. Well, lets just run the math to see how much one packet of Splenda costs in the real world:

$10.42 / (divided by) 100 packets = $.1042 per packet.

Now, that rounds down to ten cents each, a really solid, good happy damn round number. Now, with that math in mind, we can compute how much value in Splenda I received tonight:

$.10 per packet X (multiplied by) 28 packets = $2.80.

Wow. That’s damn near three times more than the value of the drink. That is fucking mafia quality highway robbery right there. Yeah I am bad.

Steve suggested that we take this a bit further though, and that these findings are really lame and infantile, and I am more of a loser now than ever before. So he says that if I want to be cool, I  would keep a running tab on my surplus/deficit of Splenda, and run a study of the value over a long time period. Now this, this fucking sounds cool.

This is going to require some planning. I will need to come up with a way to solidly monitor my stock levels of Splenda. While we’re on it, we should probably add other sauces too, and see how much dough we can really save. This will probably require a brand new post and maybe it’s own page. Hmmm. Let the Fast Food Olympic Games begin.

Oh, if you are a fast food exec, please, this is all staged. If you are real, then use your judgment based on my concrete factual evidence. Hell yeah that’ll cover my ass.

Like many of you, I have returned home to the wrong drive thru order. It’s very unnerving and frustrating. When you go to the drive thru 4 or 5 times a day 7 days a week like I do, you quickly become an expert in reading the person at the speakers voice, and gauging what steps need to be taken from this point on, to ensure you actually go home with what you ordered. Since youngsters just learning to drive might very well read this, I thought assembling a how-to guide would help you kids out, and perhaps delay the onset of 30 year old fast food bitterness. Here’s how it’s done:

Step one - the speaker.

The drive thru speaker can be an intimidating process. You have literally seconds (unless you get a douche then you have 30 fucking minutes to read the menu, if you don’t drive away to the fast food place across the street). You still-green-behind-the-ear seedlings, listen up. You MUST, I repeat, MUST place your order in a clear, friendly, intelligible voice. Talk only at the speed in which you think they can punch the keys into the register thing. YOU MUST not go to fast here, if you do, you are certain to get the wrong bullshit. Take your time, and NEVER EVER say something like “I would like two number twos…” because you will only get one number two.

You must keep a keen eye on the menu screen (if applicable) to cross-check your order as you give it. Pay attention to the speed in which menu items show up on your screen. Wait until the item is correctly shown, and then wait for the speaker to tell you “anything else”. This is the most critical step to ensuring your order accuracy.

It’s also recommended that you say “thank you” after they tell you your total. I feel, that by simply saying thank you, it sets you apart from the previous 1000+ assholes that already got their wrong order. Show them that you care about them. Show them you like them, and you increase your odds by 5%-10% that you’ll get your apple pie.

Step two - the first window.

Because McDonalds has the better dollar menu, and much beefier styrofoam cups, I visit McDonalds roughly 60% of the time probably. Since our McDonalds uses a two-window system, I’m going to discuss that. One-window customers, this will still be applicable, you’ll just have to use more imagination.

As I discussed in a previous article, you must do your homework while you are placing your order. You cannot rely on the speaker person to tell you which window to pull up to. If you are lazy during your ordering process, and you aren’t told, you won’t know which window to drive up to. You could potentially sit at the first window like a real jackass for a good length of time. The longer the time goes between your order, and physically holding your food, the greater your chances are of order failure. Make certain you know which window.

TIP: If you didn’t pay any attention, pull to the first window, pausing just enough to see if the first windows’ register is even on. If you don’t see it on, all you need to do is act like you were digging for your wallet. Then you can cruise up to the second window.

Step three - the second window.

Here’s where the magic happens. All the grunt work and foundation-laying at the speaker and the first window finally come to fruition. You get to watch with glee as your drink is assembled, and placed close to batters box, ready to be handed to you with a straw. Ah! Did you get your straw? Did they put the straw(s) in the bag? Or are they so ignorant and incompetent, that you will not get your straw?

Asking for extras, such as ketchup or Splenda or whathaveyou, is a very delicate matter that must be handled intelligently. You can’t just up and ask “Oh, can I get some ketchup”. Haha, woah there sprout. Never ask for your condiments before you they assemble your order. Use that time to monitor that you get all your food. Personally, this is how I do it. When the person hands you your last bag of food, before the bag’s center of gravity is fully under your power (i.e. they can’t let go yet or it falls, and they have even MORE work to then do) that is when you ask for your extras. They have no choice at this point, and can do your food NO ADDITIONAL HARM.

Here is a very expert tip that takes some time and practice to master. If you are good at identifying the boxes that your particular food comes in, such as a Big Mac box, or a hard taco wrapper, you can spend the time that they hand you your condiments, carefully and slowly opening your food bag, and gently placing them in.  When done right, it appears you are simply placing your condiments in the bag, and not double checking for this stupid fuckers lack of brains.

Once you have confirmed your order is accurate, and you have condiments and drinks in tow, you can safely, slowly, proceed forward, allowing the car behind you access to your window.

At this point, you need to really double check your food. Go digging. Let those fries tip over, you can always dump them back out when you get home. This minor inconvenience is far more important than not having your sandwich.