fast food will kill you

I work in an area of town that, while the city’s Visitors Bureau would probably give the neighborhood its safety seal of approval, most of the residents would tell you otherwise. But usually I don't dwell on the unsafe conditions of the community which surrounds the office.

My lack of any office windows cut me off entirely from the outside world. The apocalypse could come and go and I would miss it from inside my windowless little room, completely stunned upon leaving at the end of the day to find that humanity had been wiped clean from the face of the Earth while I sat behind my desk.

But at noon today, as I drove a few blocks from our office building to pick up my lunch order, I was reminded that perhaps this isn't the safest area of town in which to venture too far from the four walls which encase me.

I drove down to the street which is home to several little delis and sandwich shops...or 'restaurant row' as we call it...and noticed that a three block section had been barricaded by the city police, allowing foot traffic but making it impossible for cars to navigate through the maze of wooden horses.

Not one to let police interference ruin my lunch, I parked a few blocks away and walked to the restaurant where my food sat waiting for me...upset that I was unable to drive right up to the restaurant door, but figuring that the calories I was burning off from all that exercise would account for at least a smudge of the mayo that would be smeared upon my sandwich.

After paying and grabbing my meal from the front counter, I walked back outside and overheard a group of people discussing the police presence on the block.

"I can't believe that somebody was shot up the road!" said a lady wearing a blue wool coat.

"The ambulance just raced off, and judging from the mess on the street, somebody lost a lot of blood," her friend with the Eckerd Drug shopping bag responded.

"I heard that it started in the McDonald's at the end of the street,” said a guy in jogging pants and a windbreaker. “Two guys started fighting inside, got thrown out, and then started shooting at each other. I was sitting in my living room watching the news when I heard the gunfire.”

"You know," said an elderly man with a cane, "people always said that eating all that fast food shit will kill you. And I guess if the food don't do the trick, the other folks eating there will."

Personally, this bit of news just confirmed my suspicion that Happy Meals really aren't making anybody happy at all.

In any event, I plan on packing a lunch from now on.