As I reflect upon last night's fast food foray, I am forced to consider the people who contributed to my meal. What kind of person works the night shift at Wendy's? The hunt was conducted by my mate, so I never got to see them, but I am convinced that monkeys and crack cocaine were involved. I'm not complaining about the quality of the food. Fast food, with the exception of In-n-Out, which captures a gourmet subset of the genre, is usually, by nature, edible but lacking in culinary genius. Wendy's offers up far more palatable fare than the big three do. No, it is the asthetics of the food that Wendy's fails on, this being the part the monkeys are responsible for, and provision of accessories, which is where the crack cocaine becomes involved.
A nice, cheap, tasty, square-pattied burger from Wendy's is satisfying enough to sink my fangs into, but God forbid you open one up to peer at it. It's an ugly view in there, patties slapped on as if fired from a cannon, condiments stacked haphazardly and then smashed by a plastic-mitted fist. Sadly, with Wendy's one is usually forced to perform an autopsy before eating just to fix the sloppy assembly job, which can put you off the whole concept of eating, at least until you get that second bite in. The salads are much easier to accept. They are meant to be tossed. If it's mostly in the little container and not smashed at the closure of the lid I'm happy. Baked potatoes, too, are hard to mess up, but could they possibly manage to get the chives evenly distributed, rather than in a tight green lump at one end? It's a small thing to ask.
The mate, in his hunting duties, was good enough to remind the drive-thru window monkey to include the condiments for our salads and potatoes, so this time we didn't stare meekly at dry lettuce and spud, forced to deliberate between immediate satisfaction of hunger and driving back for satisfaction of consumerism. They did, however, fail to provide us with forks. We are civilized kitsune, we do use utensils. Now it worked out, as we were at home, but can you imagine if this had been a road hunt? Try eating a caesar salad with your fingers sometime. I mean it, try it. It's not going to happen.
So why the bitchfest when those who know me understand that, In-n-Out aside, Wendy's is nine times of ten my favored pit stop for cheap caloric intake? It just seems a puzzle to me that, since the passing of Dave Thomas, Wendy's has managed to maintain their tasty food status, but has steadily grown worse in customer service. I understand that working in a fast food joint isn't the most satisfying job on the planet. You work lame hours for lamer pay and usually have to don unfashionable polyester costumes for the priviledge. But still, people, do it for Dave. Give us a sandwich assembled like you'd want to put it in your mouth and put down the crackpipe long enough to simply recall what add-ons are expected with what menu items. It'd make me almost as happy as a double-double animal style and a vanilla shake.
