Rock and Role

I usually pack my lunch when I go to work cashiering at Sav-A-Center food mart. Or my mom puts it together in a little lunch pack with an ice pack…it’s usually light, a sandwich, an orange/apple and a few cookies, with a bottled water. This is convenient for me because I don’t have to spend money out of my paycheck to feed myself while I’m working to make that paycheck. But hey, everyone needs (or wants) a treat every once in a while.

I sometimes walk across the parking lot to the McDonald’s on the corner of busy Gause Boulevard and not-so-busy Military Road. The intersection of these two streets could, I guess, be seen as the intersection of two different parts of Slidell, Louisiana: the rural Slidell and the urban. Gause extends for, I don’t know, 15 miles, maybe?...It’s the main street in Slidell. It seems most major businesses are located not far from it. On the other hand, Military Road (a nickname for LA Highway 1090) is a windy, mildly hilly road veering through various neighborhoods away from the bustle of “city” Slidell, which Slidell now is: a small city. But put the thought of the intersection of Gause and Military on hold for the moment.

As I walked into McDonald’s, I was really trying to decide whether I was going to get the Big Mac meal or the Big N’ Tasty. There was a time I would have called the latter the “Big N’ Nasty”, as McDonald’s never really floated my boat…but if I’ve wanted fast food while I’ve worked at Sav-A-Center, “Mickey D’s” is what’s right there, so Mickey D’s it has been. I’ve come to like McDonald’s a bit, I guess, though I prefer Wendy’s better. I walk in and the cashier is a bit frustrated, and reasonably so. She doesn’t know what the heck to do: she owes at least one customer money because she doesn’t have enough cash in her drawer. Tell me about it. That’s a perpetual problem when I cashier at the supermarket…employees who want to cash checks, Coinstar payouts, and customers who want cash back when using their debit card. And the managers come collect money from you, “sweeps” they call it, so you then don’t have enough money left in your drawer. But it really is necessary that they do cash sweeps so that you don’t keep so much in your drawer that you’re asking to get robbed.

Anyhow, as I ordered my #6 combo (I’d decided to get the Big N’ Tasty meal), I realized I’d need $16.38 back after giving the cashier a 20-dollar bill. She already owed someone else 5 bucks, now she owed me sixteen…”because,” she explained, “people always give me twenties (dollar bills) and I don’t have any more change to give!” I empathize, girlfriend. So someone comes juggling some money and I get my change. I smile and say there’s no need for apology, it is crazy. That’s one thing I’m learning about the world of business: it’s pure lunacy.

Let me break my stream of consciousness writing style again to go back to another time I visited this McDonald’s. The shift manner was cursing the daylights out of the fast food industry because, for one, the Pizza Hut on the same corner (yes I know, everything in my world seems to exist at this intersection, but it doesn’t) , the Pizza Hut ran out of cheese one night, and you know what they told this shift manager?! “Sorry, ma’am, we can’t deliver your pizza because we’re OUT OF CHEESE [emphasis added].” As the manager then went on to point out (and curse out), Sav-A-Center, where I work, is 200 footsteps at most away from the Pizza Hut…why couldn’t that Pizza Hut employee or another one have gone down to the supermarket to buy some cheese so they could stay open for business?! The shift manager then went on to lambaste the fry dudes and burger-flipping homies for not having their shirts tucked in. Point being what we all know, the fast food industry breeds weirdness, not just tasty food.

Anyhow, I got my food and cheerily walked to a table to say grace and chomp away. I had forgotten to get my drink, though, so I got up to fill my plastic cup with Barq’s root beer. On the way to the soda fountain, I started to take in my surroundings. I noticed it seemed someone had put up imaginary walls in McDonald’s…it seemed that there were about 6 different people groups there.

The most obvious was the group of basketball “punks” from across the street at the local health club. These boys are bad 2 the bone (or will swear by their mothers they are at least) and you better stay out the way. They’re, generally, carousing and even (*surprised face*) harassing a manager, which she seems to be in the mood for, so the humor was appreciated. As I sit down, I notice this huge group of guys leaves and there still are four in a corner not eating but playing cards, and slapping each other in jest…hmm, must’ve been a couple junior high kids in that group. ;)

Next, I noticed a couple guys in the restaurant who would fit my category. Working class, blue collar. A bit more soberly, they take humongous bites out their burgers and kind of just eye the world and are reserved. I probably seemed the same way in the restaurant, observing and generally chilling out during my lunch break.

Then there was a couple in there…looked like they could’ve been dating. I don’t think McDonald’s is the most romantic of options out there, especially this one, but is sure is practical. (If you’re a guy reading this, you probably agree; if you’re a girl, you’re probably thinking I need to get a life if I think I’m going to court a girl and take her to Mickey D’s. I never said anything about ME taking a girl to a fast food restaurant, calm down.)

Then there were the “family types.” Moms with little kids. I mainly saw them on the other side of the glass, in the indoor playland, separated from the other people groups. I’ve always thought there was something special about seeing the “stereotypical” young American mother with her little kids running around. It’s a bit of a natural high for me, I guess, as it’s a hint that maybe, just maybe, there’s a normal family situation there. But then again, maybe not. Maybe these kids are bastards. I don’t mean that in a cursing sense. I’m referring to this fatherless generation: excuse me while I get ticked off about my fellow males who don’t give a rat’s tail about the woman they impregnated or the kids he left her to tend. Jesus, help this generation. Where there is no father, there is an unbalanced situation. Kids need that strong male authority present to provide character…both sons and daughters need it. From the little I’ve seen at my young age of 17, sons without a Father become delinquent-prone or lacking a manly, responsible attitude, and daughters don’t get a good example of what a true man is, and turn into “man-eaters,” and allow guys later on in life to run over them like a Mack truck.

It seems there was a fifth group I’m not remembering, but this is enough to demonstrate. Interesting what it takes to bring people from various economic backgrounds and social structures together…it took a burger fries and a coke. Strangely enough, we all love fast food, don’t we?

While I was eating, I did think also about what I was eating. It tasted great. However, I did think about the kids who were preparing the food, too. Possibly, the tomato on my burger had been dropped on the floor before being plopped back on the bun. If someone didn’t clean the fry thingy, I could have bacteria on my fries. Or a host of other insanity food preparation practices that I don’t know of because I haven’t worked in the industry. Not to mention the nature of the food. Although I’m skinny, and I’m in no danger of becoming fat (now anyhow), we all know the case of the man who sued McDonald’s because…he’d gotten fat. The food just ain’t good for you, that’s no secret.

I also thought about the soda as I got another refill before I left to go back to work. I almost felt guilty getting another refill, thinking “I think it’s free refills, I hope…” but then I thought about something else. “How much does it actually cost them to sell this stuff to me anyhow?” What is there that costly about this beverage? What really makes a soda aside from the artificial flavors that distinguish, for example, a Sprite from a Coke? It’s the carbonation. Let’s be honest: none of us would get soda cravings if there wasn’t that “bite” to it, that fizz. Try a flat Coke. Uh-huh. Quite unpleasant. So, if it’s the carbonation that is literally at times killing us … and obsessing us … and if carbonation is the thing that characterizes soft drinks… let’s think about how much it costs to put carbonation in a soda. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yeah. It can’t cost too much. They must be reaping huge profits on soft drinks while we poor human souls are addicted to the buzz, the “bite” of a soda on our tongues.

I could go on and on about things there are to think about the fast food industry … the fact that it’s mostly teens employed, they get mistreated…injuries are frequent…employees get terminated at a higher rate than any other industry…and the reason is because of a book I’ve been reading. I’m required to read Eric Schlosser’s FAST FOOD NATION before I get to LSU this August. And it’s eye opening.

Remember how I mentioned the intersection of Gause Boulevard and Military Road at the beginning of this post? Yeah. It’s where the urban and the rural collide. Few things bring us together…but food surely does. As Rally’s advertises, “Ya gotta eat.” Whether you live in a mansion or a shack, you’ve got to eat, and the fast pace of our society demands that, at times, we eat out fast food. Face it. Your employer gives you a 30-minute lunch, you don’t have time to run home and make yourself a lunch, honey! And you didn’t have time to make a lunch…much less have anywhere on the job to store it!

Fast food. What would we do without it? I wouldn’t have been able to have lunch today if there wasn’t Mcdonald’s, because honestly I hadn’t had time to make my lunch today. What would we do without fast food? And what could we do without it? We could be healthier, safer, etc. But it’s the nature of our society.

What’s the point of all this? Maybe it’s just to make this observation: I’m always hearing about the wave of the future. Computers will simplify our lives, make things go faster. So will fast food. Problem is, that’s false thinking. The faster our society goes, the FASTER everyone is expected to perform. Now we’re stuck in a rut where people are committing suicides at higher rates, crime is up, people are so tired they can’t function, we work on Sundays and Saturdays … all because of the speed of our society. Is it a stretcher to blame all our troubles on fast food and computers and the high speed nature of the world? Maybe. But maybe it’s a big problem…maybe it’s not the leading cause of crime, etc…but it surely isn’t helping things as once promised a century before I was even born.

Don’t be deceived. Just because we have computers and conveniences, doesn’t mean our lives are more convenient. We move at a faster pace than at any time in human history … and for WHAT? What in the heaven above or earth beneath are we accomplishing? Life is not simpler…it’s more complicated. Believe me, I’ve been thinking about my cashier position, too. What would we do if the whole scanning system in every store across America failed? Huh? WE WOULD DIE OF STARVATION! There wouldn’t be enough people or common sense to sell items on an individual, manual basis! Everything’s coded.

So what if everything blows? The problem is, it will. Read your Bible. The judgment of God on earth is going to make things pretty hairy…it will put a new meaning to the phrase “hell on earth.” So in the meanwhile, though, dream on if you want…

…and think that everything is peachy.

Strange bit of thinking that was writing this. But it’s therapeutic to actually think about what’s going down every once in a while.

“Stop, hey, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down…
What’s going down, tell me what’s going down, I wanna know just what’s going down…”

We’re a rock n’ rolling nation, aren’t we? Always on the go. If you just read that long, sleep-inducing piece of junk I just typed, you’ve thought a little about the role of fast food in making a society unhealthy and being supported by a society that can’t stop long enough to catch its breath. Now think about what our role is in continuing to buy fast food and supporting this madness…

…but don’t think too hard…because if you’re like me: even after thinking how bad the fast food industry is for us, you’ll shake yourself and be saying “double size it” pretty soon. It just tastes so good! Haha.

Rock on,
Josh