The Bright Side of Fast Food Empires

Step into any McDonald's and a familiar environment from childhood comes back to you. That strange yet intoxicating aroma of grease, baby wipes, and immigrant sweat. The loud screams of children, abandoned to the play area by their parents, fill the enclosed space. You take your place in line behind the other desperate and hungry fools; an elderly couple who order the fish sandwiches because hamburgers are 'too spicy',  a young mother whose children whine about which toy they want with their happy meals, and an obnoxious racist man who cannot deal with the cashiers accent-

"Its a Big Mac, Jose, not a Bikmik!"

You are filled with shame and stare at the door to contemplate the alternative choices you could have made for your lunch break. Tommy and Susan went to Panda Express, you do like Orange Chicken. Maybe you should have joined them. You think of leaving, but before you can manage an escape, the line in front of you has gone, and the cashier asks for your order. You stare at him, and you would run, but his manager is right behind him, and being the nice human being you are, dont want to cost him his job, so you order.

Upon receiving your quarter pounder, fries, apple fritter and root beer, you take a seat at the permanently slick tables. Before eating anything you take a sip of the root beer, to prepare yourself for the heart attack in paper wrappers about to enter your body. Upon having that first sip you realize that your drink is...different.

I am not one to defend the horrible and horrifying food-stuffs that are served to millions (or billions as McDonald's likes to brag). The greezy bacne causing hamburgers. The questionable origin chicken nuggets. Coffee that tastes more like it came out of a donkey than off of a donkey. But there is one small pinhead sized prick of light on the taint of the fast food highway: soft drinks in paper cups. It is an experience that you cannot recreate at home no matter how hard you try. Now I dont know that causes this phenomenon. The cups, the food, the soda dispenser, but whatever it is, its amazing.