Personal Dork Assistant

The In-n-Out drive-thru line has

The In-n-Out drive-thru line has its own peculiar rhythm. It's not particularly "fast" food, per se, especially during your typical mealtime rush, when it can take 15 minutes to get to the front of the line. It's never a good sign when there's still half a dozen cars ahead of you to the squawk box. There's a moment of annoyance at the waste of time that lies ahead and I almost whip the wheel around to head right back out the lot. Then reasoning takes over and I figure that I won't save any time by driving somewhere else and I really don't feel like cooking. Well, nobody said they had to be good reasons.

I pull into line and start sucking exhaust like a good little consumer. My turn to order comes up soon enough, and I face up to the squawk box and the monkishly minimalist menu, brightly lit and outlined in oversized letters. Double-double with grilled onions, order of fries... Already had a regular soda for lunch, so I'll go with Diet Coke for now. I can see how people get addicted to Diet Coke. It doesn't taste worse than regular soda, just different, and you get all the chemical "benefits" of Coke without the body's usual sugar satiety signals kicking in, so you can just keep pouring the stuff down the gullet. Of course, there are people who can drink regular Coke like water, and they deserve the hideous death that the fast food industry is selling to them.

The line lurches forward in fits and starts. A slow but smooth progression sometimes stalls for a while. Maybe there was a bunch of counter orders, or maybe they're cooking up a new batch of burgers. Sometimes the stall occurs just as I reach the pick-up window, and I wish I could explain to the people behind me that it's not my fault the line isn't moving, that I'm only getting a single order of burger and fries. Meanwhile, on the other side of the window, a timer is ticking away, counting the wait time of each customer that pulls up.

I get my food and take off, trying to get home before everything gets cold. It's still the best chain-store burger you can get, although I feel a little gipped ever since my office-mate (a former In-n-Out team member) told me that the burger patties are only 1/8 lb. each, so a double-double is just a quarter-pounder. It's plenty, really, but it's the principle of the thing.