Grand Opening

Monday, May 12, 2008

There's a new fast food place opening near our house. It's nothing special, just a chain burger place. But something about this place has caught the girls' fancy. They are transfixed and completely caught up in the excitement of a big-time fast food opening.

This is more than a little strange. A few years ago, we took a day-after-Christmas road trip to visit my brother in Seattle. On New Year's Day we watched the Morgan Spurlock documentary "Super Size Me". The girls swore off fast food forever.

You have no idea how much fast food you really eat until you have a fourteen hour drive where your children make vomit noises every time they hear you planning a quick stop at the golden arches. Very convincing dry-heave noises.

But stale meat patties and potatoes fried in animal fat are the Sirens to their Odysseus. So, as the opening date of the new restaurant approaches the kids come home with reports of progress on the building... or the landscaping... or the drive-thru menu... and on and on. And each day, just before bed, they open their little Advent calendar and eat another little chocolate in the shape of a hamburger... figuratively speaking.

They dream of one day working there.

"Dad, just think. It's close enough that I could walk to work. And the sign says they pay seven dollars an hour!"

These children have obviously never cleaned a commercial grill with ammonia.

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