Friday night, things to do, no time. Also, you’re not in the mood to cook. So… off to Mickey D’s. Ready?

You follow a gray Honda moving at a glacial pace down the avenue, and hope that the car won’t turn into the McDonald’s driveway. It turns into the the McDonald’s driveway. It moves into the drive-thru lane. You follow.

There are several vehicles ahead of you in the drive-thru. Eventually, you advance to the brightly-lit menu and two-way speaker system to place your order: Two double cheeseburgers, one large order of fries, one ten-piece order of chicken nuggets with honey-mustard sauce.

You wait patiently until the vehicles in front of you, including the gray Honda, advance to the point where you can actually pay for your order. It is also at this point that you feel powerful rhythmic vibrations within the car, and even within your intestines. It takes a moment for you to connect this with the rumbling sound that emanates from the vehicle that is now behind you in line. All you can make out in the rear view mirror are bright headlights, evenly-spaced holes in the vehicle’s grill, and the letters ‘GMC.’

You pay for your order, and receive your change and a receipt.

The gray Honda departs, and the field before you is now clear. You move forward to the second window to await your order. The pulsing rumbles (or rumbling pulses) of the vehicle behind you continue unabated. They are so loud that they distract the crew inside the McDonald’s; a young woman sticks her head out of the window to stare back behind your car, then pulls back inside and calls out to her co-workers: “It’s that white boy in that big truck.”

Another young woman comes to the window and presents you with two drinks, along with straws. You smile and inform her that you did not order any drinks. You recite the ordered items from your receipt: Two double cheeseburgers, one large order of fries, one ten-piece order of chicken nuggets with honey-mustard sauce. The young woman turns and relays this information to other young women, who engage in animated discussion.

A moment later, she returns to the window and apologizes for the delay. You tell her that’s okay, and you smile.

The vehicle behind you continues to pulse, rhythmically.

A minute or two later, your order is handed to you in a bag. Perhaps prodded by rhythmic waves, you move your car a bit forward before pausing to inspect your order. You find that you have been given one double cheeseburger where you had ordered two, and two large fries where you had ordered one.

Well.

You swing your car around to the front of the McDonald’s and park in a vacant space. You grab your receipt and your bag of food and enter the restaurant. You pause before the counter and wait.

A young woman – not one you have seen before – glances at you, then turns to her co-workers and announces: “Here he is now bringing his food back.”

Everyone working at this McDonald’s stops, and turns, and looks at you.

You look back.

An older woman advances to meet you at the counter. You explain to her what has happened (the mix-up that gave you one too many of one item and one too few of another) but before you can even properly finish relating the story, the woman takes the bag of food from you and slings it – the one double cheeseburger, the two orders of large fries, the ten-piece order of chicken nuggets with honey-mustard sauce – into a nearby trash can.

The woman imparts instructions to the crew – obviously her crew – and you wait.

The atmosphere is decidedly less animated inside the McDonald’s that it had been earlier.

At length, the woman presents you with your new and corrected order. She asks if you would like a turnover by way of compensation for the delay. You tell her that no, everything’s just fine, and leave with your food.

The next evening, dinner at home: “Chicken under a brick,” rice and peas, and crème brûlée.

Apparently, you’re in the mood to cook.