June 11, 2002

Today in McDonald’s I saw the following sign hanging below the menu:

SMILE GUARANTEE
If we do not SMILE before you pay, you get a FREE
Small French Fry or Hash Brown.
PLEASE PLAY! ………….. TRY TO CATCH US!

This is a direct quote (I wrote it down) except that I’m actually not positive about the number of periods in between PLEASE PAY! and TRY TO CATCH US! I kept trying to count them—the woman at the register clearly thought I was a dangerous lunatic—but there was something sinister and mesmerizing about the periods that caused me to lose count every time I got past three.

Now I can never go to McDonald’s again, for fear that an employee subjected to such degradation will have brought a gun to work and will start shooting while I am there.

In perhaps less terrifying news, I have been reviewed! Wendy, thank you, whoever you are. Would that you were a gay man so that I could obsess neurotically about you and fall in love with you and then meet you and be completely disappointed and disillusioned.