memes

I don’t usually eat fast food, but one night I was starving, and there happened to be a drive-thru right next to me. I saw only two cars ahead in line and thought it would be quick. I pulled in and waited. Fifteen minutes passed. Then nearly twenty. By that point, a long line had formed behind me, trapping my car.

At the thirty-minute mark, I started asking the cars around me if they could maneuver to let me out. After almost forty minutes, I finally managed to escape.

Frustrated and still hungry, I drove a little further to a local gyro joint. I walked inside, placed my order, and within five minutes, I was enjoying a fresh, delicious lamb platter.

If this had been an isolated incident, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. But the reality is, experiences like this are all too common. Fast food isn’t fast, and to make matters worse, it’s often not even cheap anymore. Unless you’re scraping the bottom of the so-called “value menu”—which has become scarce and filled with low-quality options—you’re likely paying the same, if not more, than you would at a local spot.

When you stack up the cost, the wait, and the disappointing quality, it’s hard to justify why anyone bothers with fast food at all.