McDonalds (short story)

Really, I thought I could breeze past this. It’s kind of a guilt thing. How many times, am I stuck in the McDonalds line up, going: I could leave, why don’t I leave, I could really leave. But instead, I don’t leave, I pay a stupidly cheap price, get a stupidly large amount of food, and sit where no one can see me and just gorge.

Really, I’m not proud of it, but it’s a part of who I am. I live in a bad area. Theres true addicts around. And I will be with friends, seeing these people who are in hell, and going through hell, and they talk to me, my friends, of how they don’t feel any empathy. I’d like to agree with them. But strange as not, I can’t, and even stranger it’s because of McDonalds. I am addicted. Truly. Laugh. Stop reading for a second, I promise, take a giggle and skip to the next line, it doesn’t bother me, I think, or I hope, that there is something to laugh at, at being addicted to those fucking golden arches. Carrying on. Howabout a new paragraph?

Fucking McDonalds. I go, and the problem is I’m cheap. I’ll argue that. How about, my friends call me cheap, I call myself efficient. And see, the problem is, I’m really good at being efficient. I know the value of a dollar. And I know ten dollars will get me a cheap pitcher of beer, two fifty will get me a bus, fifteen dollars will get me an okay meal at a restaurant, ten dollars will get me a taxi from here to there, but above all that, five dollars will get me two double cheese burgers and a junior chicken. McChicken sauce is free. That’s four patties and a chicken burger for half the cost of a cheap pitcher of beer. It’s dangerous economics. It’s almost, at least mentally, like, if I got a dollar, the best way I can spend that dollar, honestly I’m saying this, the best way to spend a dollar, is not on university, is not on rent, it’s on a double cheeseburger. Make sure there’s free McChicken sauce.

I feel bad for talking like this, I’m clearly a bad person. You should never talk about this, but I’m writing this, and I will write as the words come to my fingers. Fifteen minutes ago, I was at McDonalds. I went because I had not been there in a long time. As above I stated I’m a McDonalds addict. I went almost, almost to see what it was that I had made such a fuss about. Well, I did, it was cheap, it was delicious. It brought up memories. I remember knowing I had to walk an hour to a friends place; at the start of the journey there was  McDonalds, and I rembember not calculating now how much food it would take to make me full, rather, how much food would it take to keep me company over that hour long walk.

This is the problem. I hope it’s a problem with other people besides myself. I don’t eat there for food. I eat there for a time killer. For company. Because it’s the cheapest form of entertainment. I am shocked at myself for loving it so much, but that doesn’t change that I do love it so much. It’s an addiction. That’s not a witticism. It’s an addiction. When I walk past a McDonalds, I don’t question my hunger, I question the change in my pocket. I give it a jingle, the question is not how much money there is, but rather, what can this exactly buy me at McDonalds. I will spend within my means; however, unless I have no money, then I’ll put it on plastic, because it’s good to, ummm, I don’t even know my causality, to keep my credit up maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know I eat there a lot. I just know that I live a good, clean wholesome life and this is my badness in it. At least the badness I will talk about.

Well, that’s an awkward way to end a paragraph. But that’s ok, we’re both already past it. I’ve written a hefty chunk on my fast food problem. I’m pulling at the walls of my brain trying to think of what the point was. I hope for a point more then you hope for a point. You might go, shit, why did I bother reading this wall of text. To me, it’s the attempt to answer a lifestyle choice, and oh no, no answer is readily coming. I’m waiting, literally typing waiting for an answer to come to my finger tips. Is this it? Lets try. I do these things at McDonalds to my body and I know they’re bad. But the fact is, when I drink a bit, I want pleasure. And pleasure is hard to come by. You have to kiss a beautiful girl. Have someone say something wonderful to you. See lightning strike. Basically, magic has to strike for pleasure to really happen. And, maybe I’ll write about this in another wall of text, but magic doesn’t exist. I’ll never walk out at the start of the night, and be able to expect a night to remember for the rest of my life. What I can expect is to get drunk and eat a lot of delicious food and it will be cheap. And sad as it is to say, and I’m saying this right now completely undeppressed and content, I will eat this food on so many of these nights to make me happy. And that’s it. And that’s what the point of this entire  wall of text is. And my question is, I go to these fast food joints all the time; I always feel guilty; they’re always full; are you, are you my readers, are you there the same reason I am there? Us cheap, pleasure craving, lazy unhealthy mediocre monstrous normal people.

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