I have this summer lunch I call the "Freightquote lunch", because i discovered it when i worked there during the summer of '02, shortly after moving back to KC. It's light, so it works well with Missouri heat, hence the reason it's a summer lunch and not a winter lunch. It is a very simple trip to Wendy's to procure a 5 piece chicken nugget, a plain baked potato with butter and a biggie iced tea. The saga began yesterday, with the world determined to not grant me my baked potato i crave.
My wife wanted a baked potato as well, and when the cashier told me that they only had one baked potato left, I knew it was going to my pregnant wife. I settled for the free french fries. Then today, my wife offers to swing by Wendy's and try to get me a baked potato. She succeeds, i get my baked potato and when it comes time to eat it...well, i lose out again.
I have a difficult time with the cleanliness and preparation of vegetables at fast food restaurants. I will not eat lettuce from taco bell (i'm fine with cheap meat, cheap cheese...but cheap lettuce, eh, no thank you) and i will not eat the skin on a potato from Wendy's. Who knows whether they have cleaned it or not. So I began the process of scraping the yummy potato out of its skin into the bowl, licking lips and excited that my holy potato was there for the feasting. In walks the sales lady, witnesses me performing my potato surgery, and starts grilling me about why i am doing it. She asks, "Is it a part of your diet you are on?"
- I've put on 25lbs in two years, but that 25lbs just bumped me into my target weight range for my height.
- What kind of diet lets you eat the potato but not the skin? Ah, if i could have gotten my hands on this Atkins asshole before he started warping everyone's' minds.
I explain why I am doing what I am doing, forgoing the devouring of my potato for 10 minutes while she asks questions and talks to me ONLY to have her tell me in the end that she feels the same way and would be doing the same. My potato is 10 minutes cooler; at least I am not burning my tongue today.
She leaves and the next person enters. Her mother is an account manager like me. They were in southern Missouri at some weird horse and buggy thing they do every year for two weeks. Unfortunately, the horses did not navigate a turn well, flipped the buggy and almost everyone was jacked up. As the buggy flipped on its side, her mother's leg was snagged by one of the rails, ripped into it and held her while the horses ran away. She was life-flighted with the fear that she would either not make it or not keep the leg. So far, she is alive and kicking (sorry, bad pun). The girl proceeds to give me a graphic description of the event and how it was like watching a tiger attack her mothers potato, i mean leg. Her father is struggling because he feels like he hurt his potato, i mean wife. She is struggling because if she were two potatoes closer, she could have grabbed her mother and pulled her free. Then we get into a graphic description of her injuries and how she can't bend her leg, the cuts started to heal and scab but then became blisters and were now oozing. My potato is now ruined.
