According to Hofmann: Too fast too food…almost
I’m going to have to go through my archives of columns because with the subject of this week’s, I’m starting to feel like I’m the Weird Al Yankovic of humor columnists.
It’s not because my columns are funny – good lord no! — but because I think I’m writing about food way too much.
For the record, Weird Al has an epic number of parody songs for all genres of music, but he’s also known for food-related parody hits like “Spam,” “My Bologna,” “I Love Rocky Road,” “Lasagna,” “Taco Grande,” “Eat It” and “Fat”, which, well, is what you get for making Weird Al your playlist when you’re trying to work out.
Anyway, I was struck with the idea that I’m writing too much about food when I had an idea for another column about fast food and I thought, “Really? Another column about fast food?”
“But it’s a funny idea,” I said aloud while in my car at the fast food drive-thru.
“We both know it won’t be,” said the voice in my head, which I assume is my rational conscience. “And the fast-food employee who just told you ‘But it’s a funny idea’ is only on their breakfast menu.”
Like always, I’m ignoring my conscience and diving right in with this week’s column about fast food as I question if fast food is, in fact, too fast.
Don’t get me wrong, I like quick preparation and service as much as the next guy, and I’m fully aware that it’s called fast food for a reason, but have you ever really paid attention to the time that it takes from ordering your meal in the drive-thru to paying and receiving said meal?
What I try to do is compare it to the time it takes for me to make a typical sandwich. I found there are suspicious times where it seems like the family meal I’ve ordered and double-sized is done and bagged and waiting for me at the drive-thru window before I can visualize me getting the peanut butter jar open.
“And here’s your food,” the fast-food employee says to me.
I hesitate for a brief moment as thoughts wage combat in my head like the distrust that the food was made too fast vs. ravenous hunger vs. the absurdity of the significance of mascots for fast food vs. the suspicion of what I’m actually being handed.
As you can imagine, hunger wins each and every time. Besides, I already paid for it at the previous window. That’s how they get you, you see?
So that’s why I actually feel good when there’s a wait or I’m sent to park elsewhere to wait for my food. It tells me there’re actual human beings preparing my food and not an industrial Rube Goldberg machine slapping ingredients together at a blinding speed.
The wait is almost like quality control in a way, which is why I’m baffled when the fast-food employee apologizes to me for the wait.
“No apologies necessary,” I say, and I mean it. “I’m just glad you’re a person and not a food-preparation unit that can withstand an EMP attack.”
“Thanks, but we might have gotten your order wrong … maybe sneezed in it by accident … or on purpose.”
“All the more encouraging.”
Of course, there’s a trade-off with speed of the food and quality of food.
Let’s face it, when you order from a fast-food joint, you’re getting prepackaged food nuked to something of a warm temperature and slapped together and delivered to you by sometimes angry people who don’t really want you there.
When you go to a nice restaurant, you’re getting higher quality prepackaged food delivered to you by sometimes angry people who don’t really want you there. The difference is it takes longer, it’s hotter, you pay more and you’re encouraged to leave a tip.
Yes, I jest, but seeing how some fast-food places have been accused of not using real meat for their “meat” and how the chemical makeup of some of their food items can repel black mold, I wonder if we overlook all of that because, well, it’s tasty and, as you know, hunger always wins.
I also think about the evolution of fast food and wonder about the fast-food of the future as we pull up in our driver/passenger-flatulence-powered hover cars at the drive thru.
There, after we pay through chips implanted in our eyes linked to our bank accounts, a robot resembling Rosie from “The Jetsons” emerges with hoses for arms with one arm reading “FOOD” and the other reading “SECRET SAUCE” and then assaults your face by shoving the hoses in your mouth with the liquid “MEAL” while Muzak plays on the loudspeaker of the song “All Star” by the band Smash Mouth, coincidentally.
It almost sounds like something out of a Weird Al song.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His books, “Good Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One … and Dying, Too” and “Stupid Brain,” are available on Amazon.com.