I am Neo

The other weekend while visiting my parents, I ran into a Burger King for a bottle of water and a soda for them because it was the closest place to get something of that nature. Even before I had gone Eat To Live/China Study I didn't really eat fast food, but it was only because everybody knows it's just not great for you. But I admit once a year or so if we were stuck on the road we'd cave. And it'd be a delicious, naughty treat.

I got out of the car, surrounded by a tangible miasma of salty, greasy fast food smell. I remember it used to smell good to me - I had always thought fondly of the feel of hot, crispy, melty fries between my teeth.

I pulled open the door and went in.

The odor of industrial soap mixed with charred "meat" patties and oil was overwhelming. I could even smell the soda, the fake chemical plastic smell with the heaviness of carbonation and falsely sweet aspartame... all of it was in the air. The ground sucked at my shoes: squick, squick, squick. The generic, EZ-kleen tiles reminded me of a bathroom.

I'm not certain exactly how I smiled at the youngster behind the counter and ordered my water, but I did. I was so busy processing the Jekyll/Hyde transformation of the fast food world there wasn't much mental capacity left for conducting routine social interactions. Somehow I ordered, paid, received my bottle of water and proceeded to the dispenser to get the Coke. As the fizzy liquid poured onto the ice cubes in the HUGE! plastic container, the carbon dioxide wafted to my face like a burp. Blinking a few times almost made me dizzy.

How strange! Like a veil lifted, suddenly I'm completely incapacitated by the gray fluorescent reality of the chemical food industry. How terrible, I think, as this means leaving my house always has this potential to land me in an edible wasteland.

Nicole quoted: “If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price."

Oh, yes.