Please Don't Feed The Stereotypes.

My downstairs neighbor's new schmoopie had a day off today, and from the sounds emanating from below she was quite industrious all morning. Since we're on a well, and I'm on the second floor, my morning shower had to wait until all the laundrying and flushing and whatalleverthehell else causing the little well pump to run constantly was ended.

While I waited for her to exhaust her cleaning mojo, I jumped in the Beemer, cranked up Achtung Baby on the stereo, and went out to run some errands, dressed in my usual fashionable I-just-rolled-out-of-bed attire: unzipped boots, gray sweat pants and an EOTech tee shirt. It definitely makes a statement; it says "Help me!" I headed to the convenience store for sodas and beer, so I wouldn't have to stop on the way home tonight (I'm taking the bike to work,) and on the way there I hit the McDonald's drive-through.

Now, I'm not the world's biggest Mickey Dee's fan, but I do appreciate two things about them. First, they're consistent. You can order a Big Mac or an Egg McMuffin anywhere from Anchorage to Key West and know exactly what you're going to get and exactly what it's going to taste like. Second, McDonald's is maybe the most egalitarian institution in America; I have sat in the drive-through line behind Ferraris and Fords, Mercedes and Mazdas.

I placed my order, paid at the first window, and rounded the corner to get my vittles, but there the line ground to a halt. Sitting at the food service window was a white Ford Leviathan with a single occupant. I studied the monster vehicle through the rest of "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" and the first two verses of "So Cruel". There didn't appear to be anybody else in the vehicle, other than the driver. But there was a lot of driver.

Finally, the server at the window hefted over one of those big grocery-sack-sized bags of food, using both hands. "Ah-ha! Making a breakfast run for the family or the folks at work!", I surmised. But then the server reached out again to hand over... ...a single beverage. Yikes. Supersize me, indeed.

Any further observations on my part are going to make me sound like some kind of Euro-type, or worse, a Democrat, but day-umn!...