Driving Through
“I’m sorry Sir; I don’t know what you mean.”
“The Sandwich which is made of chicken and is on the dollar menu.”
“The McChicken?”
“Yes, I only want that.”
“$1.14 Sir, please drive around.”
Pulling my head back inside my car, I grasped the steering wheel until my fingertips turned white, and frustrated, I said loudly, “God Damnit.”
Then, I realized the trap of drive-through dining; which is that seconds after speaking irritability to the hollow voice from the microphone, you have to creep your way on that narrow little road, to the window, and meet the voice in person. Only worsened when you cry “God Damnit” in desperation, loud enough for them to hear it.
Slowly I pulled up to the window and recognized the girl. I didn’t know her; she was just another recognizable face in the multitudes of zombie people who crowd the halls at school. Who was she, getting out early to work at McDonalds for her marketing class-her guidance counselor must had told her she was on a rocket to the moon? I fumbled giving her the bills because I tried to stare straight ahead. As she gave me my change, I glanced at her face. She looked at me with wide open eyes and a puffed out, fearful face, as if I was wearing her mother’s favorite dress, and she could barely wait to run home and divulge the culprit. I creped onward to the next window.
A heavyset girl was waiting for my arrival, and she smiled a big wide devious smile at me. I recognized her too. She was in my summer school PE class and always sat out during the exercises because she was pregnant then-bringing her mammogram shots to class for her underlings to ogle over. Apparently she never took off the weight. She conferred with a faint voice in the kitchen and then turned to me. She then leaned herself halfway into my car and said with hot breath, “Honey, could you park your car up ahead, over there, and we’ll walk the food right to you.” Then she smiled another wide devious smile, so the sunlight sparkled off her teeth, reminding me of the little broken glass capsules of crack-cocaine thrown into the ditches. All I could think was if I could roll the window up fast enough, I could suffocate her by the neck with it-and what a startling way to get murdered. Ahead of me, the cigarette smoke, spewed by workers outside on their break, had lingered its way into my car and where filthying my lungs. So I creped my car ahead and parked it.
Using the small directional pad inside the car, I moved my side-door mirror and fixed it on the McDonalds entrance, and it made an agonizing noise. Finally, a hugely fat man came toward my car with a dwarfed white bag. He came to the door and said proudly, “A McChicken Sandwich.” I took it from him. He peered into my car with its school books, and clothes, and music he had never heard of; and there was such an interest and discovery in his face, I thought he might be a good fat scientist and write up a scientific observation in his leather-bound journal, and like finding some exotic cricket, grab an object and stick it into one of his many tiny cages. He finally looked at me and I snarled at him slightly with crooked eyes, and that singled him to scurry away giggly as a pile of Gello.
At last, my McChicken.
“The Sandwich which is made of chicken and is on the dollar menu.”
“The McChicken?”
“Yes, I only want that.”
“$1.14 Sir, please drive around.”
Pulling my head back inside my car, I grasped the steering wheel until my fingertips turned white, and frustrated, I said loudly, “God Damnit.”
Then, I realized the trap of drive-through dining; which is that seconds after speaking irritability to the hollow voice from the microphone, you have to creep your way on that narrow little road, to the window, and meet the voice in person. Only worsened when you cry “God Damnit” in desperation, loud enough for them to hear it.
Slowly I pulled up to the window and recognized the girl. I didn’t know her; she was just another recognizable face in the multitudes of zombie people who crowd the halls at school. Who was she, getting out early to work at McDonalds for her marketing class-her guidance counselor must had told her she was on a rocket to the moon? I fumbled giving her the bills because I tried to stare straight ahead. As she gave me my change, I glanced at her face. She looked at me with wide open eyes and a puffed out, fearful face, as if I was wearing her mother’s favorite dress, and she could barely wait to run home and divulge the culprit. I creped onward to the next window.
A heavyset girl was waiting for my arrival, and she smiled a big wide devious smile at me. I recognized her too. She was in my summer school PE class and always sat out during the exercises because she was pregnant then-bringing her mammogram shots to class for her underlings to ogle over. Apparently she never took off the weight. She conferred with a faint voice in the kitchen and then turned to me. She then leaned herself halfway into my car and said with hot breath, “Honey, could you park your car up ahead, over there, and we’ll walk the food right to you.” Then she smiled another wide devious smile, so the sunlight sparkled off her teeth, reminding me of the little broken glass capsules of crack-cocaine thrown into the ditches. All I could think was if I could roll the window up fast enough, I could suffocate her by the neck with it-and what a startling way to get murdered. Ahead of me, the cigarette smoke, spewed by workers outside on their break, had lingered its way into my car and where filthying my lungs. So I creped my car ahead and parked it.
Using the small directional pad inside the car, I moved my side-door mirror and fixed it on the McDonalds entrance, and it made an agonizing noise. Finally, a hugely fat man came toward my car with a dwarfed white bag. He came to the door and said proudly, “A McChicken Sandwich.” I took it from him. He peered into my car with its school books, and clothes, and music he had never heard of; and there was such an interest and discovery in his face, I thought he might be a good fat scientist and write up a scientific observation in his leather-bound journal, and like finding some exotic cricket, grab an object and stick it into one of his many tiny cages. He finally looked at me and I snarled at him slightly with crooked eyes, and that singled him to scurry away giggly as a pile of Gello.
At last, my McChicken.