Fast Food Rough Draft

Everyday when we are out at work or school, we are faced with a decision: What to do for lunch? Do we pack our own lunch? No—too much work. Do we eat out at a nice restaurant? No— it takes too much time and costs too much money, not to mention the long drive to get to one. It seems like getting lunch is becoming a near-impossible task. But right before we abandon all hope, there shines a ray of light at the end of the tunnel: fast food! It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s fast, and there’s a restaurant on every corner. And above all, it tastes delicious! Why wouldn’t we indulge in such a flight of fancy?

I worked at a Mickey D’s all throughout high school. To say the least, it was highly unpleasant. This was for a large variety of reasons, which seemed to get increasingly worse as my time there droned on. The bathroom was almost never cleaned; and why would it be? We were all teenage kids getting paid minimum wage and managers that were only biding their time until they could get out of this aptly deemed “hellhole.” There were constantly flies buzzing around in the kitchen, somehow even in the heart of winter. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy the onions, constantly landing on them and sitting there until someone needed to use them on a double-cheeseburger.

“Put the fly traps up so the customers can’t see them,” my hefty manager Jodie snarled at me, as she was finally forced to address the matter.

Somewhere halfway into my wonderful McDonald’s employment, mice were discovered living in the back room by my fellow crew member, Duane, as he was picking up a fresh box of buns. When he went to throw them out, realizing that the mice had gotten to some of the buns, Jodie stopped him.

“That is worth money!” Jodie snapped. She looked at him like he was a ten-year-old who had just broken a treasured vase that was a wedding present twelve years ago.

The mice ended up staying for a few months (Jodie didn’t feel like dealing with them. She ended up naming a few of them) until an enraged family stormed in, their kid having opened a mouse in his “happy” meal. Of course, being the one working the front counter, I had to be yelled at for this. These people were devastated. A flood of tears and a lot of excess wailing was emitted from their child, while the whole restaurant stared. Eventually, a manager came out. To make up for their confounding, and possibly threatening experience, we gave them a free meal! Oddly and to my immense surprise, this was enough to satisfy them, and they left happy.

Why do we know these things, and yet still participate in things that we know are bad? McDonald’s is famous for being some of the unhealthiest food in the world. We know this, but yet millions of people a day choose McDonald’s for lunch.