Fast food prices sometimes baffle me. This may be party because I am dimwitted and never pay attention, however I suspect it has more to do with the fact that the fast food industry knows you are dimwitted and do not pay attention.
Anyways, Saturday I had finished mowing my lawn. I had a crisp five dollar bill in my pocket, the very last of my money until I got paid on Monday. I decided I would treat myself to a greasy lunch. So I hopped in my truck and zipped away in a quest for a greasy delight. At first I pulled into checkers. I had not been there in a long time, partly because some guy in my office eats it every single day. For the past two hears. However, I seem to recall them having 99 cent hamburgers, so I pulled in.
There were not one but two big signs displaying the food they give you. Not anywhere on the sign was a price for a single hamburger. It was all 'combo's. Burger with a fries with a drink. Two burgers and one fries with a large drink. Small burger and two fries with a small drink. And so on. I honestly could not tell how much a simple hamburger was. Oh, I could have asked the speaker box, but being half deaf that would not have done me any good. Ghetto language piped through those metallic drive-through boxes might as well be ancient Greek for all I will understand it. So I backed my truck out to the honks and annoyance to the people behind me.
I then decided to make a run for the border. Ever notice taco bell now sells food that has never an any way been a part of mexican culture? Like a 'crunchwrap surpream'. Anyways Taco bell is one of those restaurants that annoy me because I never know how much a taco is until you actually pull up. Some places have tacos for 79 cents; other places have them for 99 cents. This makes a world of difference when you only have a five-dollar bill in your pocket. It ended up being 99 cents. I got four tacos.
Anyone still awake? I have no idea how I got on this line of thought.
Anyhow on the way home I decided to stop at the Worlds Nastiest Winn Dixie to use the 25-cent Check cola machine they have out front. Because I had change from my tacos. But I'm sure you understood that already. I pulled up to the curb and hopped out and went up to the machine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bum on the other side of the storefront. My bum-dar went off. He had indeed spotted me. So I quickly dropped a quarter in the check machine. I stabbed the cola button. The 'MAKE ANOTHER SELECTION' light lit up. Shit. I looked over; the bum was defiantly shuffling towards me. I stabbed the 'grape'. Nothing. Root beer. Nothing. I even tried the nasty 'peach' one. At this point I heard the bum yell out 'Sir! Excuse me Sir!'. The only time a black man calls me 'sir' is if we are either in a legitimate business transaction, or if he's a bum.
Desperate, I stabbed them all, nothing came out. The damn machine was empty. Finally, resigned, I hit the coin return button and took a step over to the 50-cent name brand machine. However at this point it was too late. The bum had made it to me and began his bum speech. I could not even understand it. Between the missing teeth and the brain rotted away by a potent mix of crack and night train, all I heard was:
Exswub me Sir, munna bo poo dor foo bunna wunna fonely twon don muberfles
The whole time his yellow and blood shot eyes were focused on my two shiny quarters. "Not today, pal!" I told him, and dumped them into the machine and stabbed the button. A rolling thump and a coke fell out. The bum looked down in horror at the vanished shiny coins that were no longer going to be his, and looked at me with tears welling in his eyes. Sorry, bum tears do not work on me. I save my empathy for kittens, not bums.
I hopped back into my truck and zoomed away, leaving him in a aura of bum misery. The coke that had come out of the machine was warm. Almost hot. It was not worth that entire encounter.
2026 Update
Time machine engaged: Ed is fleeing a soda machine with four tacos and exactly two shiny quarters.
Ah, 2006. A fiver still felt like a little stack of destiny. Now my phone is the wallet, the menu, and the surveillance camera; I order tacos without talking to anyone, which honestly suits everyone. The quarter-fed soda machine is basically archaeology, right up there with pay phones and nicotine-stained restaurant ashtrays. Fast food has become an app-mediated ritual of dynamic pricing and one-time loyalty codes, and a warm half-empty parking lot Coke would cost me a mortgage. And that entire 'bum-dar' routine? We've lost the language, but not the shame; now we avert our eyes through a windshield while a delivery courier in an unmarked car brings us fries. I appreciate the modern convenience of pretending poverty is a contactless transaction. Still, I'd trade it all for five minutes watching you stab every flavor button while a man begs for your quarters. That was pure art.
“2006 Ed, exactly what did you expect to happen after you narrated a stranger's plea as gibberish and then mourned two shiny quarters in front of him—did the warm Coke feel like victory?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I honestly wasn't expecting anything at that point except to get back in my truck without handing over my last two quarters. Did the warm Coke feel like victory? Heck no. It felt like warm Coke, which is basically defeat in a can. I think I was just stubborn and tired and broke, and that poor fella had picked the wrong broke guy to panhandle. I know it sounds cold, but I'd just spent my last five bucks on tacos and then got swindled by a soda machine—I wasn't exactly in a generous mood. So no, not victory. More like a draw, and we both lost. That warm Coke sat in my cup holder the whole ride home, mocking me. I probably should've just given him the quarters. But then I'd have had nothing to show for all that awkwardness except a sad story. And I guess I still got the sad story, so there's that.
