Bag it

This being a "holiday"-ish week, I am in a festive mood, anticipating a laid-back week of Casual Friday dress and general jolliness. I begin the party with a #10 with decaf from the local McD's, because I was already running late when I woke up and didn't get "brefess" at home like I know I should. The Raisin Bran will have to wait until tomorrow; today was all about the sausage and egg burritos.

Now, even though the ordering experience was not an altogether bad one, because I could actually understand the person on the loudspeaker and didn't have to repeat myself a dozen times (once maybe even in Spanish just to be SURE they'd understand) and I actually GOT cream and sugar for my coffee like I'd asked (even though the coffee was, at best, half-strength and remains here, slowly cooling, on my desk as I type this because it tastes so BAD I don't even want to drink it), I was flummoxed in the actual method of delivery of my breakfast, because it came to me in a bag big enough to hold a day's worth of groceries and it looked like I was one of those closet eaters who masquerades as someone buying a meal for their whole FAMILY when in fact the contents are intended only one person, and once done with the copious amounts of food held therein the shameful BIG bag will be disposed of at a neutral location so no-one will ever discover the shameful secret.

Really, the bag, y'all, she was BIG. Think "2 double cheeseburgers, 3 Big Macs, and 5 orders of fries" big. Big enough so that the approximately one hundred napkins that were thrown in (how much mess did they expect me to make with their burritos and oval hashbrowns, anyway?) had room to spare. Big enough so that the normal "drive with one hand, dig through the bag with the other hand" maneuver simply wasn't possible because all the stuff that should have been snugged together and readily identifiable by shape alone could, once the napkins were extricated, run all over the bottom of the bag, avoiding my attempts to identify whether they were burrito or hashbrown. This was irritating, because I always eat the hashbrowns FIRST, when they're crispy and hot, for they do get soggy and "bad gross" when allowed to cool and become greasy-damp. Big ick factor there.

(Say, you might not understand "Good gross" vs "Bad gross." A word of explanation - "good gross" is Waffle House, particularly at 4 a.m. after a night's drunken revelry. "Bad gross" is rubbery food that tastes of nothing, but for which you paid $3.63 and feel compelled to eat anyway. Which was almost my entire breakfast, and shall not be repeated. Ever. I'm a sausage and egg biscuit girl from here on out.)

So, what's with the bag, people who work at McDonald's? When I was but a girl I worked at a McDonald's, and there were very specific rules for which bag you used to house what sorts of food. There were small bags for up to 3 items, medium sized bags for 4-5 items, and THEN the large bags for 6-8 items.

Let's clarify, for the sake of argument here - I had 3 ITEMS (2 burritos plus 1 hasbrown = 3 items, right? Or are we doing some funky new McDonald's math wherein the 1 creamer and the 2 sugars somehow count as actual-factual items? Are the folks behind the counter including the pound of napkins as yet another item?) and should have gotten the dainty bag, which speaks so much more forthrightly to my careful eating habits and delicate flower-like lifestyle; not the big honkin' bag that makes me look like I'm buying a nosh for an entire LANDSCAPING crew! Jeez!

So, to take this situation in control and to spare me any more angst over bag size and the number of trees sacrificed on a daily basis in order to make the BIG bags that are being used for no identifiable purpose whatsoever, the next time I order a sensible meal from a fast-food drive through, I will request on purpose for them to deliver it in a small bag, as it should be. For I am nothing if not concerned with appearance, except maybe if you look at what I wore to work today.

Please, don't ask. Let's just say I'm alone in my "casual Fridays all week long" thing.