One Big Mac from emotional equilibrium

This is the true story of my desperate search for a cheeseburger.

The other day, I left school after 12 hours on campus.

I was tired.
I was starving.
But I wanted to get out of the city.

I actually briefly contemplated a "vending machine" dinner (which usually consists of a main course of Ho Ho's with a side dish of Doritos and a Mountain Dew cocktail) It was 8pm and I had not eaten since breakfast. I decided it was too early in the semester to resume my "vending machine diet" and I really wanted real food.

OK, something that LOOSELY resembled real food - A Big Mac

So, I started my trip from Washington DC towards my home in Virginia. My commute is about 35 miles, which takes about 2 hours 15 minutes during rush hour. However, it was 8 pm, and I figured it should take me less then an hour, and somewhere along the trip I was bound to just happen upon those "Golden Arches."

I WAS WRONG!

About 15 minutes into my commute, I hit a road block, just before the "National Mall."

It's a protest.

I'm racking my mind to think of what people could be protesting on Tuesday at 8PM at night that was worth fucking up my commute home. The IMF or World Bank were not meeting, to my knowledge, no recent Supreme Court decisions on any hot-button issues, such as abortion, death penalty, saving the fuzzy striped eel, etc, in the recent future

WHY WHERE THESE PEOPLE FUCKING WITH MY COMMUTE?

I'm hungry
I'm Tired
I just want to eat a Big Mac and go home
Is that too much to ask??

Don't get me wrong. I am all for freedom of speech. For God's sake, I'm a fucking law student.

You can call me Ms. Free-speech

But when your free speech collides with my commute home. We have a problem.

I fantasize for a second about running down the protesters, running right through the blockade and continue on the most direct path home. Instead I take the detour, and wonder if all the protesting groups plan their schedule around my commuting schedule.

One hour later and 5 miles later, I'm out of the city and in the Commonwealth I call home. Only 25 miles to go.

I am starved
My head starts to hurt
I'm getting a migraine
I NEED A BIG MAC

I decide to bail off the highway (where the Golden Arches are sure to not be) onto the first, unfamiliar, exit. At the end of the exit ramp, I am faced with a key decision.

LEFT
OR
RIGHT?

I glance quickly down each direction. The car behind me starts to blare his horn (a prerequisite to living in this area is impatience). I pick left.

I drive 1, 2, 3 miles. I am becoming desperate. I reach under my seat and find an old bottle of coke.

It is old.
It is hot.
It is flat.
It is arguably dangerous to ingest.

I drink it. I reach rotely into my brief case looking desperately for ANYTHING to eat. I am becoming delirious. I am becoming annoyed. When you aren't looking for a McDonald's, they seem to be on every block, where are they now?

Then, like Manna from Heaven I feel something in my brief-case. It is a very old box of Butterfinger BB's. I savagely rip the unopened box open. I suddenly look up and realize I have, in my hungry delirium, entered into a very very bad neighborhood.

I am in the GHETTO.

Not only am I in the ghetto. But I am in the ghetto with a sign saying "Car-jack me" written all over me. My luxury SUV stands out like a sore thumb. My laptop computer (Lily) sits in plain view on the seat besides me. My brand new IPOD sits in plain view on my dashboard. From my back seat is clearly visible the television screens on both sides of the car, plus my children's X-Box hooked to them.

I don't start thinking "What if I get carjacked" I start thinking "When I get carjacked." In the back of my mind, my more primal instinct are still ruling. I am thinking "DAMN, there's never a McDonald's in the ghetto. I start looking for a safe place to U-Turn and prepare for my inevitable car-jacking.

Just as I am U-Turning I come face to face with THEM. The young men who are going to car-jack me. I try not to make eye-contact, but they keep pulling besides me.

I catch a glance.

I've never been car-jacked before but...

Do young men who carjack you always yell "Hey baby." and blow kisses and make other vulgar gestures?

Then it occurs to me. In my starving delirium, I have reached my entire hand into the box of chocolates. Forgetting the scientific fact that HEAT MELTS CHOCOLATE, my hand came out chocolate-coated.

I was licking my hand like a shark that just smelled blood. I realize the licking between my finger JUST MAYBE looked like a vulgar gesture.

That explains my young ghetto-inhabiting admirers in the car next to me yelling:

"LICK IT BABY"

I am somewhat relieved that I am not about to be robbed, raped, and murdered. But, I have more serious matters on my mind.

I MUST FIND FOOD
I MUST FIND FOOD
I MUST FIND FOOD

I am back-tracking under the interstate, heading the direction I would have been heading if I had turned left in the first place.

The ghetto suddenly turns into yuppieville. Its so sudden its shocking. I feel like Dorothy when she first entered OZ.

I look around for the munchkins, but instead I see a sign "Condos, starting in the low 800's"

Yes, folks, that's $800,000 for 1,000 square foot condos. What I don't get is the word "low". If a person is prepared to purchase an $800,000 condominium, does the fact that it in the LOW as opposed to HIGH $800,000 REALLY make a difference?

But I have been distracted from my task at hand. My search for that cheeseburger in paradise.

Then it occurs to me, as seldom as you find fast-food joints in the ghetto, it is even more seldom you find them in neighborhood's like this. I am surrounded by places like Sutton Place Gourmet and Panera (all of which are closed this late.)

I accept my destiny.

I am going to perish right here. I suddenly long to be back in the ghetto. At least there I would not have died alone.

Then, like a sign from Heaven I see it. Those familiar Golden Arches. That smell of grease and saturated fat. That international symbol of obesity and heart-failure.

My life has been spared!


After my trip through the drive through, I scarf down my Big Mac and head back towards the highway that will take me home.

An Alanis Morrissette song comes on. I feel as if Alanis is singing straight to me:

"I'm broke but I'm happy.
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but im healthy
YEAH!
I'm high but I'm grounded
I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed
I'm lost but I'm Hopeful

BABY

What it all comes down to
Is everythings going to be
FINE FINE FINE

Because I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one's giving a peace sign."

My emotional equilibrium has been restored.

Life is good.