Drive Thru Damnation

Woke up early. James is away, back in the motherland, and so I've inherited his car. Where it was parked forced me to wake up at an ungodly hour and move it for early morning street cleaning. I'm not sure what street cleaning actually accomplishes though. A loud, slow moving truck comes by bearing huge spinning bristles that swirl around and scrape the gutter as the truck inches by. In its wake there is often garbage strewn about, blowing in the wind from its freshly disturbed place. The grime and general uncleanliness of the street still remains intact, however. I think a giant toothbrush with a big glob of oxyclean on it would be more effective. We'd just need to hire a team to scrub the gutters with it to get them all pearly white.

When I first woke up I thought I'd just go back to sleep after, that I'd still be tired from sitting in the car for an hour and twiddling my thumbs. I can see now that I was mistaken. I'm awake now. Maybe there's still time to tire myself out. I could do some erotic morning calisthenics. When the car is a rockin', don't come a knockin'. That sounds like a lot of work. On top of that, over the weekend I slept wrong on my shoulder, and now it's in quite a lot of pain. Any unnecessary exertion seems unappealing.

An unfortunate side effect of the injury I sustained while dreaming is that I can't go to the gym to lift weights. I might go anyway and just stick to cardio.

Oh, here's the street cleaner. Time to move the car. Be right back.

Ok, so I've moved the car, but now I wonder if I can leave the car here with risk of ticketing. The cleaning has occurred, but the sign says no parking between 6-7 for street cleaning. Since the cleaning has happened, and the cop cars have passed, is it safe to leave the vehicle even though it's only 6:20? I think I'll wait 5 minutes, and then if no wild traffic cops appear, I'll role the dice. This is a good case study on owning a car in San Francisco. Recently I'd been considering buying a car, a Jeep, but I hadn't considered the inconvenience of not having a garage. Cars on my street often get their windows broken by desperate crackheads looking for lint to smoke between the seats. Kids key the side doors. When I was younger we used to steal the caps off tires and deflate them slightly, for fun. Some nights for cheap thrills we'd drive around and smash the side mirrors off of parked cars. I'm owed a karmic return, you see, so I'm hesitant to put the car in a precarious parking position.

Saturday night, after a show, Holly and I got stoned and hungry. I floated an idea - a secret pastime of mine - of calling an Uber to take us to the McDonald's drive thru. She seemed giddy at the prospect, even though she wasn't particularly partial to fast food, especially McDonald's. But after a few kisses and a couple more hits of the bowl, she obliged. Carlos picked us up, a man who bore a striking resemblance to Uncle Fester. There would be two stops, I told him, the first would be McDonald's, and the second, back here. I asked him how he felt about circularity. When we got there I asked him if he wanted anything. I told him we'd pay but he insisted he could pay for his own. We're in this together, man, let me buy you a ten-piece. He laughed graciously but was firm about paying. Holly, sitting on the driver's side, had the responsibility of placing the order.

As she spoke to the voice coming through the speaker, she made a faux pas that outed us as two stoners. She asked for a Frosty. At McDonald's. No! How could you have been so foolish! They're onto us! She caught her mistake readily, and began laughing hysterically into the microphone, for what felt like eons. Don't do this to us, baby, please, stop laughing. Uncle Fester had grown older and more wrinkled by the time the voice replied. Is there anything else, he asked coldly. Yes, a ten piece chicken nuggets. Just then, Carlos blurted, "on a separate check." What!? A separate check!? At a McDonald's drive through? What the fuck do you think this is, Carlos? Have you done this before? When have you ever fucking gotten two checks at a fast food drive thru!? Holy fuck this was amateur hour. Not only did they know we were stoned and in over our heads, but they knew we had the nerve to drag a third party into this by hiring a driver to deliver us to our late night indecency. What kind of sauce, the voice asked. I want to pay, Carlos yelled back. Carlos, man, shut the fuck up. Put it separate, he screamed, put it separate! What kind of sauce? Just give him ketchup! Then there was silence. I heard a dog howl in the distance. Or maybe it was a wolf. Through the open window I could hear the judgement buzzing from the speaker. And then it came: you know, for a penny you could get 20 nuggets instead of 10. I was too high for this kind of math. For one cent we could double the number of nuggets!? We looked at each other. What were we supposed to do? Was he toying with us? What does one do when the offer is simply too good to refuse, and yet, too good to be true? I looked at Carlos, hoping to catch his eyes in the rear view mirror but all I saw was nervous sweat dappled across his bald head. JUST DO IT, I screamed. What was happening? Was I in a Nike commercial? Had they partnered with McDonald's? I knew one thing for sure, though, I wasn't lovin' it.

There was silence. Something was wrong.

What. Kind. Of. Sauce.

Goddamnit, got us again. Honey mustard.

Drive up.

We drove up, completely unprepared to meet the face of the voice of god. We were to be sentenced. The car crawled around the curve. Carlos had cut the turn too wide and the front of the car jutted out away from the window, putting as much distance between himself and the window as possible. He threw a crumpled up $5 bill at me and made the sign of the cross as he clutched the rosary beads that hung from the mirror. I could sense his shame. A pimply faced boy with long hair poked his head through the window at us in the back seat. His brontosaurus neck stretched into the car cartoonishly as his lips hovered just before my ear.

We might be out of apple pies.

Ay Dios mio, Carlos screamed. This was too much to handle. Out of apple pies? On a Saturday night? This was prime time! What did I come here for? We all know the nuggets aren't chicken, and the burgers are made of wax and perfume. Fuck. Fuck it all.

Just joshin' ya.

He dropped the bag into my lap. The smell was intoxicating. Once Holly handed him the cash, Carlos sped out of there like a bat out of hell. In the blink of an eye we were back at Holly's and Carlos was looking at his nuggets erotically, softly moaning under his breath as he tore open a ketchup packet. I wondered if there was a condom inside. As we exited the car I could have sworn I heard him whispering to the nuggets.

Cluck.

Cluck!

Cluck!