How Is Everything Tasting?

I’m not sure when it came into use, but a few years ago I started noticing that wait staff in restaurants would come to my table with a new question:  How is everything tasting?

It’s in near universal use now. In fact, it is quite noticeable to me whenever a waiter doesn't use this exact wording, because those times are extremely rare. In those cases, I figure it must be a trainee who is quickly taken out back and throttled after this faux pas.

This question disturbs me. It’s not just because it's a grammatical hack job: I certainly hope that my food is not tasting anything at all, because I prefer my food to be dead before I eat it. I am the one doing the tasting, not my food, thank you very much. If that’s not the case, I would certainly like to know, so I could make my exit and find another establishment where I could enjoy a meal of good, dead food. I’m okay with a few living microbes on my plate, but animals and plants should not be alive when the wait staff brings them to me. It sounds morbid to state this out loud--and it is, quite literally-- but it is the reality .

I'm not much of a grammatical snob. I enjoy regional variations in dialect. Language evolves, and what’s incorrect today may be in the rulebooks tomorrow. This particular phrase does stick in my craw, however, as it is particularly tasteless, if you pardon the puns. 

But that’s not what’s really bothering me.

No, what bothers me is that mealtime has been downgraded from a holistic experience of culture, memories, dreams and relationships to simply a matter of bodily pleasure.

I consider this a telltale sign of the downward trajectory of the health of our culture.

In the past, a waiter might have asked: How are you?  Or: How is everything?

Though very general, those are open-ended questions through which the staff would have been trying to gauge all aspects of their patrons' dining experience--food, ambiance, service. Within that, there would have been a deeper, implied question--how are you?

Mealtime is a cornerstone of human culture, so these questions are mightily important.

To now ask, how is everything tasting? reduces the meal experience to only an experience of pleasure sensations. Complex social interactions are being described as consumer transactions. You are purchasing a product, and the sly-but-ever-so-significant implication is that its taste is the only relevant factor in the dining experience. In fact, this question is not only a sign of the decline of civilization, but it actually helps to facilitate that decline.

How so?  It's an illusion of choice: You are not being told outright what opinion to have. No, that would never happen in freedom-loving America. Your opinion absolutely matters, as any marketer would tell you. It is, after all, all about you.

But it's not. What is going on is much more sinister. You are being told the category and range in which meaning itself is recognized or, dare we say, allowed.  You can like or not like the food all you want, and the wait staff and their employers really want to know. But it's taste is the sole criterion for your opinion.

Human flourishing, cultural meaning, the spirituality of mealtime--those are non-criteria. Those are not to be discussed. Those aspects are not being refuted or argued against--no, that would actually give them power. Even worse, they are completely ignored altogether. They simply don't exist. Those kittens have been drowned in the river. Human hope, where the sum is greater than the parts, that language is gone. No, we are merely cogs in the wheel of consumer transactions, moving from one sensation to another.

Please, pass the red pill. I hear it's really tasting good.

Not Quite Dumpster Diving

I saw my hero today for the first time.

At a local supermarket, there is a manager who does a very noble thing. This person goes the extra mile to liberally distribute the “Manager’s Special” orange tags on some choice items as they approach (and sometimes pass . . . shhh!) their expiration dates. As a result, the store is often glistening in little orange labels, like the glitter of new fallen snow, and they call out to me.

It seems like they could just round up these items and throw them out. I consider it an act of service to the poor to take the time to re-tag all this stuff, and it is a task much appreciated. Other store do not have nearly as many tags.

I have been partaking of this catch quite a bit, lately. I try not to touch anything unless it is at least 50% off. Often, the discount is even closer to 80%.

I saw this manager today for the first time. I wanted to go up to him and shake his hand. Instead, I just sort of stalked him as he meandered about the store with his little cart and sale gun.

I’m still one very important step removed from dumpster diving.

The Gymnasium as a Capitalist Conspiracy

I got my membership to a local gymnasium yesterday.

It’s time to work off some Christmas turkey (from 2 years ago) and get serious about my health.

I often think about my grandma’s comments about people who workout. For the life of her, she could not understand them. She would get so outraged when bikers and joggers would pass by in front of her house. She’d go out into the street to call them back in—if they have that much energy to waste, she would be glad to put them to work on the farm! There’s work to do! That made perfect sense to her.

I was afraid to tell her I bought a workout bench in high school with my money from mowing her lawn. She didn’t say much, but we knew she didn’t like it.

I have to admit, looking at the gymnasium through those eyes changes things a bit. There are roomfuls of people expending boundless energy . . . on absolutely nothing. They go round and round on their exercycles, sweat themselves silly, as if somehow those activities are even remotely interesting. Nowadays, of course, they plug you into various TV and radio channels to entertain you during your workout. Why can’t they at the very least route their energy into some sort of power generator for the building? I’m sure those cyclists can at least keep the lights on. Maybe that would even be a good incentive for them, too!

Sure, there are health and fitness goals! Many of us do not use our bodies in well-rounded enough ways in our days jobs and we have to fulfill that elsewhere. I get that. But it still baffles me when there are so many good things that need doing in this world—and then to walk into this gigantic room where people are exerting ridiculous amounts of effort just going around in circles like some hamsters in a cage, I have to scratch my head. You see powerful men, lifting thousands of pounds, and they are rendered totally ineffective in society because all this activity and strength is contained in this little gymnasium—it never gets out there where it can be a force for positive movement in our society. All they do is lift the weights . . . and then proceed to put them right back down where they found them.

I’m all for a little bit of sport and recreation, but most of the men in our society have been totally pacified and rendered useless by it.

Our arms are made for lifting. What about lifting babies in an orphanage, lifting food for the poor, or planting flowers to beautify our world? You can get a workout and do something with yourselves, too! I’m not trying to steer people into some sort of obsession with productivity, either. Society has gone through those phases and we have had to re-learn how to have fun. But where is the balance? Our bodies are part and parcel of our vocation in life. They are meant to be used on behalf of our life’s mission. What are we put on this world to do?

You may go to the gym and see family connections, friendships developing, and people focusing on health and well-being. I go and see various science fiction scenarios playing out, not to mention a whole host of political conspiracies: Keep them busy so they don’t get into the business of world affairs.

It is any accident that the gymnasium was a favorite place in Ancient Greece and Rome—our two favorite models of Imperial Overlords? Something to think about while I'm on the exercycle!

Band-Aids

I cut myself today in the kitchen. Not bad, just a little slice.

I didn’t feel like holding the wound closed all day, but I didn’t have any band-aids. So I thought to myself, why don’t I wrap it closed with some tape?

Then I continued to think, hey, maybe I can put some tissue directly on top of the wound and then secure that with tape all around. That might be more cozy and sanitary.

. . . wait a minute . . .

. . . that IS a band-aid!

It’s a piece of gauze with tape. Band-aids are just a glorified piece of tape.

So often we are surprised to find that natural cures and home remedies are simple and effective. We’ve become so accustomed to the store-bought remedy that we have forgotten what the remedy actually consists of. We don’t stop to think whether it is really necessary or not.

The same phenomenon happens with natural deodorant, something I’ll post about shortly. The home remedies are easy, effective and accessible. They are so easy, we become suspicious--it can't be that easy, can it? We have all been trained to think we need to purchase that stuff from the stores, spending money and exposing ourselves and the environment to questionable chemicals.

"Unions Got Too Greedy," They Say

People blame the unions whenever a company packs up its operation and moves it overseas. The classic Reagan-era excuse was that greedy and demanding unions got too big for their britches and forced otherwise benevolent companies to move away. But have you noticed that entire industries that have never had any experience with unions are also making a mad dash for the third world? Cases in point: the tech industry or the customer service call centers for any industry.

While the rank and file engage in a heated debate as to whether or not unions are justified, the CEOs have been running to the bank unabated. Regardless of which side you are on, if you are fighting that fight, then you (like me and many others) fell for the diversion tactic.

I propose another explanation: I believe companies packed up and moved overseas simply because they could. Advances in transportation, communication, as well as advances in the third world nations themselves, made it easier for multi-national corporations to set up shop in places like Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. The businesses themselves also matured to the point where they were ready for such a change. A lot of industries started off as mom & pop shops, quickly growing to a larger operation, then multiple operations, etc.

Whether Americans are unionized or not, there is no way we can compete with people willing to work for mere cents a day. Even factoring in the large transportation expenses and set-up costs, businesses have been exuberantly clear that the savings in labor more than make up for any additional costs for having a split operation (management in America, manufacturing in the third world). I have no doubt that the demands of unions were a factor that irritated businesses—no question. But unions were not the foundational reason that prompted this seismic shift that has been going on the last 30 years. Industries that have no experience with unions are following the same trends.

You could argue that multi-national corporation are no strangers to the developing world: sugarcane plantations and diamond mines have been around for 500 years, if not more. In those cases, though, I would argue that they had to be there. The businesses themselves would invest in the nation’s infrastructure since there was nowhere else to harvest that produce or mine those minerals. There is more flexibility with a modern sweatshop. It is an employer’s market, if you will. They can set up their factory anywhere, so they can put more pressures on the local governments to put in that infrastructure for them. They can wait until conditions are favorable.

Statistics are clear that there is no less wealth in America. It is just concentrated among an increasingly smaller and smaller group of people. Real wages for the lower and middle class have been stagnant for 30 years. I know this from personal experience: A union factory worker could make $10-12 per hour in the early 80s. He could support a family on a single income and do it quite well. I have meandered around factories, warehouses and other industries, and even in the year 2011 one would be lucky to work for $10-12 per hour. What kind of lifestyle can you have today making $10 per hour (roughly 20 grand annually)? The price of everything has increased sharply, yet wages have not kept up with inflation. The result: the standard of living has gone down for most Americans. We are in a 30-year slow cook, and the boil is coming on just gradually enough for us to not realize it until it is too late. I have heard that frogs will leap out if thrown into a pot of hot water, but they are unable to respond if placed in a pot of cool water that heats up slowly.

Unions raised the standard of living for the lower and middle classes of America. There is no question about that: Advances that were won by the unions were directly the same advances that increased the standard of living for workers: Higher wages, better safety conditions, child safety laws, the 40-hour work week—these were the achievements that improved the standard of living of the lower and middle classes and they were fought for and won in large part by the unions. The existence of unions was not a mere correlation to advances in the standard of living in America. They were absolutely causational.

Most Americans today probably would not have liked living in the America of 100 years ago. The “home of the free” was not much different than a modern third world nation—our forefathers worked 16-hour days in often deadly conditions “for peanuts,” as they would say. They lived in tenements and shacks. Maternity leave consisted of an afternoon off, if you were lucky. Have we forgotten Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle? The increasing gap between rich and poor is not an empty political talking point. It is the grim reality of daily life. Businesses and politicians capitalize (literally) on the fact that most people either do not know or remember what it was like just 30 years ago.

All of this does not bode well for those of us in America. Our labor is competing with third world labor. It does not look promising to imagine where this will lead when followed to its logical conclusion. I have a sinking feeling that we are going to find out up close and personal where it leads, though.

I definitely urge America and especially Ohio (which is right now fighting for the life of collective bargaining in the public sector) not to vote against the interests of organized labor. Like any human operation, you can point to some faults and flaws among unions, but I would argue that it is dangerous to conclude that we would be better off without any unions. "The unions once served their purpose, but now they more problem than they are worth," you may hear. But just as the rise in the standard of living corresponds to the rise in organized labor, so too does the decline in that standard of living correspond to the decline in organized labor.

Regardless of how we vote, my worry is that organized labor may not be as effective as it once was in securing a more even distribution of the wealth. The tools and methods it has used historically are harder to apply in the modern marketplace. Workers acting as a group were able to control the supply of labor into an economy and make demands as a result. That was very effective when the supply of labor was limited to a small region. Now that advances in communications and transportation have made almost the entire 6 billion people of the world as potentially a part of the labor supply of many industries, the kind of global solidarity that would be required to use the same union methods as before seems far outside of the range of possibilities right now. Companies can pick up and move so easily now.

The industries that have been able to maintain their collective bargaining power have been those where outsourcing is simply not possible—such as teachers, for instance. Still, every industry that maintains collective bargaining provides a "bump" in the standard of living for all of us. There is a positive spillover effect as even non-union workers demand better terms in their employment. Likewise, every industry that loses that right will most likely also be knock to other industries, too.

Here is the bottom line, and it affects your bottom line: Whether lower and middle class workers act collectively or not, the results will be felt collectively.

Traditional and Non-Traditional at the Same Time

I was cooking today and noticed that the kitchen smelled like my grandparents' house . . . and I knew I must be doing something right!

This comment will make sense if you have seen a certain commercial on (the) Cooking Channel.

I have playfully made fun of that commercial before, but when it happens and you are transported, it is deeply meaningful. Suddenly, you are not just in your kitchen anymore but also in the kitchen of your childhood, and the smells bridge a gap between now and then. You are standing in two worlds as if you had stepped through some sci-fi time warp. It is an amazing thing.

Today, what I cooked was traditional and non-traditional at the same time, yet it still took me back. There was some whole-grain rice sitting in the fridge, slightly dry. I put it in the bottom of a casserole dish. I then browned up some fresh chorizo (made in a local shop) and lots of onions in a pan. I poured them on top of the rice with some additional olive oil and sea salt and threw it all in the oven, covered to seal in moisture. The hope was that the sausage and onions would moisten and flavor the rice, and it did. I served it with lots of fresh chopped parsley on top. It was good to have some fresh greens with this.

This was nothing like anything my grandparents would have done, yet it totally had the same spirit all at the same time!

My grandparents probably never ate whole-grain rice, and they would have opted for fresh kielbasi before chorizo. Yet this dish carried the essence of Slovak/Polish food even though the ingredients were off-center.

The fresh sausage and onions sizzling in a pan and the smell of chopped parsley on the counter took me right there. That is the essence of a Slovak-American kitchen.

It is amazing the way smells can not only remind you of something, but actually take you there.

Sympathy for Insurance Companies

I can sympathize with the plight of insurance companies. In a purely capitalist system, there isn't much incentive not to be total assholes. As soon as you have one do-gooder business insuring people with cancer (like me), the sooner they'll be out-competed by the assholes on the block who aren't doing that and be put out of business.

One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. Capitalism left unchecked tends toward the lowest common denominator.

That is why that argument is so clear for universal health care. If we all just get together and decide to share the burden and get 'er done, we can do it. Companies acting alone with no reward for taking on a financial burden won't insure the people who actually need it. They will sit up late at night trying to figure out ways to exclude people, which isn't a very good exercise for any human being to be involved in. Nobody should put themselves in a position where their job is to figure out ways to deny coverage for the people who most urgently need it.

The government shouldn't run health care, it just needs to remove barriers for people who need access to it and/or increase incentives for companies to do so. The government can help level the playing field so that business people who want to do good are not penalized for doing so. Let's help create a society where it is easier to be good, as Peter Maurin suggested.

I'm not saying capitalism is all bad. I'm just saying that there are some decisions that are best left to individuals to fend for themselves against market forces, and then some decisions are better left to large groups (like nations) to decide and enact en masse. Few people are trying to bring about socialism in America, and few are truly trying to bring pure capitalism (which is really another word for anarchy). The only question in American politics is agreeing on what we do individually and what we do collectively--either way it is still capitalism. Nobody is forcing the government on anybody if we all democratically decide that we would rather do something as a group than as individuals.

I'm glad we don't leave it up to the free market to determine how to drive on roads. I'm reasonably happy to know that when I drive on the road that anyone coming in the opposite direction is going to stay on the other side. Laws like this just make life easier, not more difficult. All these people spouting about how the "least government is the best" haven't seen how the business world works when left unchecked.

However, opponents like to throw out words like "socialism!" to scare people. Few people will do the relevant research to unpack all that loaded language. This is especially true in a nation where technical training is up but we have very little stock in educating people about logic and rhetoric (once pillars of higher education).

* * *

There's another argument for universal health care that few people are talking about: Entrepreneurism. How are we gonna dig our way out of this economic malaise? One surefire way is through innovation. Innovation is proven growth element in any economy. Any economist will tell you that the best way to encourage that is to reduce risk. Let's support an environment where people have fewer barriers to trying new things and let them take us to the next level.

I'm an entrepreneur. I'm ready to start my own business. I'm a director of a nonprofit organization. However, we need some time before we can turn it into an operation that can support salaries and insurance packages. The jump from a standard, off-the-shelf job into this is too steep right now. I'd have to fly without health coverage for a while. That's simply not an option. So instead of boldly going where no one has gone before, I'm looking into being a barista just for the health care. The availability of health care coverage is the biggest governor slowing down the whole process. Here I am, an excited and motivated citizen, ready to bring innovation into the economy, and I'm halted by a flawed health care coverage system.

The biggest problem is that our health care is all tangled up with employment. That needs to be unravelled. Perhaps it made more sense 40 years ago as many folks worked for large corporations like the Big 3 Auto and job transitions were more rare. Nowadays, there are many self-employed and other entrepreneurs, but the current health care infrastructure does not support their occupation choice.

Decades ago, companies found that they instead of paying higher wages, they could offer "wages plus benefits" to employees as part of their compensation package. It was a win-win: Companies could negotiate lower group rates so in a sense the employees were getting more bang for the bucks that the companies were spending on them. The problem is that we ended up with this convoluted system where health care is tied to employment. In our modern world where job transitions are higher than they ever used to be, the current system does not support our current work culture.

I Built Your Skyscraper, Now Where's My Dime?

I've always been sympathetic to some of the folk songs from the labor movements of decades gone by. However, I have to admit that sometimes I found their arguments to be less-than- convincing.

I never thought I'd be singing (for real) Brother Can You Spare a Dime? by E.Y. Harburg & Jay Gorney. The Weavers had a great version.

I used to think the song was well-intentioned, but still corny and melodramatic. Now I realize it is the cold, hard truth. Some realities in life we don't fully understand until we go through them ourselves. That is why Dorothy Day and many others have advocated for a lifestyle of intentional poverty, because if we are ourselves poor, vulnerable and at risk we will react differently to injustice. We'll be more urgent and more passionate.

In our current society, many have reasonably-solid health care coverage (or at least think they do), many don't. This divide makes it hard for one side to understand the other.

These words really ring true to me now in a way they didn't, before:

They used to tell me I was building a dream,
and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear,
I was always there right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream,
with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line,
just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, made it run,
Made it race against time;
Once I build a railroad -- now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower to the sun,
Brick and rivet and lime;
Once I build a tower -- now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once, in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodle de-dum;
Half a million boots went sloggin' through Hell --
I was the kid with the drum.

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al?
It was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal.
Buddy can you spare a dime?

Aetna used to call me "Frank." It was "Frank" all the time. When I applied, they told me they couldn't wait until I joined their family! Anthem wanted to be my friend. Now it's "Dear Mister."

My own current insurance company (Aetna) has already refused me once when I attempted to go off the group policy into an individual policy. I'm in the process of applying again. I helped build their skyscraper. The only thing I did "wrong" was get laid off.

It's amazing how we as a nation don't honor the debts of those who have contributed. We take their earnest and naives contributions and leave them out in the cold on some technicality when they are no longer useful.

We do it to our troops. We do it to our laborers.

Insurance companies were glad to take my money when I didn't have a "pre-existing condition." Folks are scared not to have coverage if some tragedy strikes, so they pay in even when they aren't getting paid back. Now they are looking for loopholes to turn me away.

The song may have been crafted to make an argument for social security. Indeed, how do we as a society take care of each other? Are people only worth anything if they are fit and able to contribute? What happens when they grow old, sick or disabled, do we just turn them away? People deplete themselves working to build up our society. Yes, they got their paycheck, but we all benefit from their contributions. Are they only good when they can contribute then left to be cast aside later?

What about soldiers who are done with their service who find their needs still remain? What about laborers who worked to build up our nation who are now too old, sick or disabled to work? Right now, we just provide health insurance for those lucky enough to fall into a sweet benefits package and disregard those who fall through the cracks.

Not only are they our sisters and brothers, but they also helped build up the wealth and the world we live in. We are living off the sweat of their backs. But they're out in the cold, asking for a dime.

So many people try to denounce universal health care and social security as some kind of government "handout." This song helps illustrate the fact that we are inter-connected. If I'm going to risk my life and future in your army, if I'm going to risk my health building your skyscraper, then that demands that we have a longer-term relationship than just paycheck-to-paycheck.

Choice Crazy

I had a rough day. Been through the wringer. I just wanted to stare out into space. Walked into a Frisch's Big Boy restaurant, thought a big pile of protein and starches might be good for the soul.

I'd love to just say to the hostess, "fix me sumthin'" and retire to a table to return to staring off into space.

Oh, no. They want to do me a big flippin' favor by telling me all these choices I have. There are first 2,000 items on the menu, but not that many pictures. Each one is a paragraph. I can get a sandwich, but sides are extra. 2 sides cost a certain amount. The soup & salad bar costs another amount. And a combo deal of one side and the S & S bar is still another price. What do I want to drink. Just some water... I step up to go to the soup bar, and she still has more questions: Do you want ice? Do you want a lemon?

Look, just fix me sumthin'.


DISCLAIMER: I don't want to turn this into another abortion thread, although by intentionally poking at our usage of the word "choice" I'd certain deserve that. There may be a real relationship here to abortion, but I'd rather not go there . . .

Chinese Restaurant People

I'm fascinated by the people who work in Chinese restaurants. They seem like an interesting group of people and I know very little about them.

Most of them seem to speak Chinese as their primary language. Am I to assume that they are recent immigrants to America? Or is it possible they live such separate lives from the rest of mainstream culture that they are 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants who have passed on their language (without picking up English)?

I haven't noticed any kind of significant immigration from China, but it almost seems like there is an organized effort at work here. They fan out and set up these restaurants in the most unlikely of places--even the most remove, white bread, small town in the Midwest.

You can tell from the food that there is something coordinated about it. There is an amazing amount of diversity in Chinese cooking. It has a fifth of the world's population and a big chunk of its space. Yet, you can pretty much know what to expect when you walk into a Chinese restaurant. Do you really think one billion Chinese people sit down to General Tso's chicken every night with gooey sauce? I would guess not. Yet, all these restaurants seem to prepare things in very similar ways. There must be classes or some kind of info sessions they go to in order to learn how to prepare Americanized Chinese food.

I wonder what it is like growing up in a Chinese restaurant. I often see people kids playing in the back or sitting at a table doing homework.

Do the people who work there eat the food they make? Or do they make the really good, true ethnic Chinese foods for themselves? Do they remember how to make those dishes?

Do they work long hours and live upstairs? How many of them are really Chinese and not some other ethnicity? Or are they mostly from the same region in China? Do you have to be Asian to make this food, or can anybody do it?

Maybe there are "Immigrate to America and Open a Restaurant" programs in China itself.

I Used to Like Sports...

...until I moved to Columbus, OH.

My gosh. "Buckeye mania" is the city-wide obsession here. It is the lifestyle. And it's a little too much for me. That's saying a lot, considering the fact I'm from Cleveland, which is known for having some of the most hardcore, loyal fans in the land.

What Columbus has is something altogether different. It isn't loyalty. It's ridiculous.

I tell people here that I don't like the OSU football and they literally look at me like there is something wrong with me, like they don't even want to be around me and certainly don't know what to do with me. I sense true anger, like I just announced that I had committed a crime. People here do worry about physical violence in such situations. God forbid you buy a blue car (the trademark color of Michigan) and leave it on the street on the wrong day.

You would think this were a tough town, from all this talk. I don't see it. Fans here are a little spoiled. Their team gets spanked in one game and they get all depressed. It takes the wind out of the entire city. People walk the streets all quiet and gloomy. Where is the anger, where is the outrage? When they win a game, there is euphoria and cars burning. There was a span of several years where people just expected to win every game.

I used to be okay with sports. I liked to root for the home team. I have followed some teams for a season or two. I was right there during some hard fought nail biters on the lake up north. But I've come to a point in life where I realize that time is limited, and I don't want to spend one second on some enterprise that I could care less about. The amount of time and energy this town devotes to OSU football tipped the scales for me from ambivalence to outrage, and I want nothing to do with it.

I don't care about your tailgate parties or all the inane post game wrap up. I don't bleed scarlet and grey, and I don't get a rush returning a volley of "O-H!" with "I-O!" I won't wear a hat that looks like a stadium, nor do I have any desire to dress like Jim Tressel. It's all a little too much like watching paint dry to me.

"Hang on Sloopy" is still a great song, though. One of the best, actually.

Automated Fast Food

I don't understand why they don't have completely automated fast food restaurants, yet. I see no reason why they even have people working there, anymore.

I imagine a scene where you pull up in your car to a window. You select your foods with a touch screen. You insert money into a bill acceptor or card swiper. You open a hatch and out comes your food.

I'm all for hand-made foods, but when I got some sandwiches from Wendy's today, the first thought that crossed my mind was, "A machine could easily have done just as well... or poorly." It could grill the meats, slap on some dressing, throw on a pickle, put some bread around it, wrap it up and send it down the chute. This wouldn't be that hard for the technology of today.

Added bonus: No danger that some 16 year old punk is going to spit on your sandwich. Or worse.

They could always have one person on site to answer customer complains, re-stock the automatic sandwich assembly machines, or be on the watch for quality control (ha!)