(from GagBlog June 22, 2004)
Have you ever watched an old person
read a fast food menu. They look frightened. And more over some of them look
like they are trying to push an ocelot out of their colon. They seem to have an
easier time at McDonald's...why? Because the word coffee appears on the menu.
They are comforted by the existence of coffee. Like an old friend standing at
the back of a crowded room waving to them. And they order it. Five o'clock in
the afternoon, in the middle of July with a cheeseburger. Coffee.
So I was stuck in line behind an elderly lady today, with a recent reddish
rinse in her silver hair, at Subway. You want to watch an act of futility?
Enjoy the sounds of an elderly, frightened upper middle class white woman ask
the seventeen-year-old Pakistani youth, whose first day it is, in the middle of
a noisy mall food court what a "WRAP" is.
To her a wrap is something you wear, hanging just below your shoulders, to a
dinner party on a chilly night. To him, it's a wrap. You know. A wrap. This
woman doesn't care about carbs. She doesn't normally eat tortillas. She's here
to spend time with her grandkids and now she's been sucked into the ever
shifting world of fastfood.
C'mon! She grew up in a world of soda counters and maybe, MAYBE drive-ins.
Fastfood menus these days change so fast that if you don't normally frequent,
or pay pained attention to advertising, you're lost as to what you want. No
wonder they look confused. It's like turning on a soap opera you've never seen
before and trying to follow the plot. I boycotted Taco Bell once, for a year.
Nothing better to do and I hated that dog. When I came back, I had no idea what
anything was. The hell's a chalupa?! The hell's a gordita?! I can only imagine
what Atkins has done to their world.
It's not their fault. They're trying. Really. We get frustrated, but I'm
telling you, blame them for not admitting they can't drive, don't blame them
for trying to learn how to use an ever changing world.
And blame them for learning to drink coffee with cheeseburgers. That's
unacceptable and wrong.