Consider this a bit of a PSA.
I stumbled across this article in The Wall Street Journal about some new regulation for fast food and dine-in restaurants no longer providing plastic utensils with your order, unless you specifically ask for them.
Gone are the days when you can blow through a Taco Bell drive through and be assured that you’ll be able to eat all your meal.
You’d think, “No worries, I’ll use my hands.”
TRUE you could, but then you’ll find that the napkins you assumed would be in the bag, AREN’T.
Not to worry though, It’s not like you’ll have hot sauce in the bag either because those too you’d have to ask for.
So, Taco Bell, and other fast food options will kinda be a no option without a checklist. I’ll attempt to help by providing my personal Ordering checklist. I’ve got it on my phone, but I’m thinking a post-it note stuck to my car dashboard might be better.
Fast Food ordering:
- Food
- Drink
- Condiments (Ketchup, Hot Sauce, etc.)
- Straw
- Napkins at least 5 (More depending on type of food)
- Necessary utensils (Spork, Knife, etc.)
- Pull up to window. Pay.
- CHECK that meal is correct and necessary Utensils, Napkins, and condiments are present.
- IGNORE HONKING of impatient people waiting behind you!
Yet again The State of California is working to make your life better, through unintended consequences.
Most of the time, If you’re a working stiff, perhaps hourly you’ve maybe got a 30 minute lunch. If the company you work for is exceptionally generous you might even have 45 minutes or a whole hour!
With traffic in most areas around California industrial parks, for a working stiff, it works out like this;
5 minutes to get out of the building, 5 minutes to get out of the parking lot (due to everyone else trying to leave for lunch) 10 minutes to navigate the rest of the lunch hour traffic from all the other companies in the industrial park.
5 minutes at traffic lights and turning into the nearest strip mall or gas station parking lot.
Pull into shortest line for for one of the fast food places, (Wendy’s, Mac Donalds, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Panda Express, etc) wait in line 5 to 10 minutes (By which time you’re already late if you’re on a 30 minute lunch.)
Place your order, 5 minute wait for food, then mad 10 minute dash, (You’re late at this point if you have a 45 minute lunch,) back to the industrial park.
5 minutes waiting at lights, 5 minutes to get into parking lot and find parking space, 5 minutes to get back into building. (You’re on the raggedy edge of being late at this point if you have an hour lunch.)
You get back to your desk, ready to resume work and eat your meal while you’re working…
You open your bag of cold soggy burger & fries or tacos that started out as crunchy but which are now, anything but. Voilà you discover that the whole exercise was pointless because even though you could eat without the condiments, or perhaps even the utensils, you have nothing to wipe your hands with.
Your lunch sits in the bag, not getting any fresher until finally it smells disgusting and ends up in the trash. Thereby contributing to food waste and spewing CO2 into the air, in the dash to get lunch that was also a pointless waste of energy.
So tell me again how wonderful it is that you’ve eliminated basic necessities to protect the planet? Huuuummm?
I swear to God, all of these jackass politicians should be under mandatory orders to live with their proposed laws for six months before they can put them into action.
Not ONE of the political elites in any California city has ever had to punch a clock or be screamed at by an overbearing manager over their lunch break being 2 minutes too long.
All one need do is look at the distribution of restaurants in and around industrial parks in San Diego, Irvine, Victorville, Huntington Beach, The San Fernando Valley, Ventura, or Los Angeles to see that most of the “working class” lives what I’ve described above daily. Or they bring their lunch so that they can at least have a real few minutes of rest during their lunch break.
Now, thanks to the politician brain trust, this new anti utensil or condiment law will ultimately slow the food ordering process down even further.
Not that these Politicians give a shit. After all, if the workers aren’t spending money on fast food, after skipping breakfast to get the kids off to school, it means the workers will have more money that can collected as taxes.
Obviously the low wage earner who collects $12 a week in unspent lunch money doesn’t need it now do they?
Plus, the Arch Ministers of Public Health can chalk up a “Win” because obesity will be less of a problem. Who cares if the workers are starving while they toil away to earn enough to pay their tax burden? That just means they’ll die sooner and a whole new group can be imported from wherever.
Maybe the Politicians are hoping it’ll be mostly white people!