"What are you so fucking happy about?"
Mecca sat in the passenger's seat, an almost irritatingly bright smile on her face, both long, lean caramel-colored legs tucked beneath her shapely ass. "What's
not
to be happy about?" She held a fry out to him, and he opened his mouth to receive it. "I'm here, you're here, and my cell phone hasn't rung once since I hung up with April."
He finished chewing and swallowing before answering. "We've been on the road for almost five hours, and we're still not at this Tomlinson Run-place. We both
smell
like we just escaped from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's the beginning of April, but it feels like it's the middle of July. And after I repeatedly told the fucking drive-thru bitch
no
mayo, there's
extra
mayo on my hamburger!"
She shoved another French fry in his mouth. "
But
I'm more than happy to share my nuggets with you, and the god of tubers has blessed us with an over abundance of fries."
"Soggy fries," he grumbled.
"And let's not forget the blowjob I gave you while hurtling down the highway
just
a few hours ago."
"Well . . ."
"Or the hot sex we had on the other side of the guardrail while cars passed by overhead." She presented him with another deep-fried tuber.
He opened his mouth, chewed, then swallowed, the barest amount of color rising to his cheeks. "That was kind of hot, wasn't it?"
"I'm a
very
good lay," she boasted with a smile.
He shook his head, the blush spreading to his neck and ears.
"Want a nugget?"
He nodded.
She popped one into his mouth then allowed her fingers to linger on his lower lip. "Of course, you weren't half bad yourself."
He turned his head away from her, causing her hand to drop back to her lap. "You talk more shit than anyone I know."
She fed him another bit of food.
"That stupid bitch."
Mecca rolled her eyes, reaching back into their shared bag of food.
"If it wasn't such a tremendous waste of time, I'd find the nearest exit ramp, backtrack the way we came, throw this shitty food in the dumb bitch's face and cuss her till she ran in the bathroom crying."
"That's awful," she laughed.
"How hard is it to make a fucking hamburger
without
mayo? There's the hamburger. There's the mayo.
Don't
put it on there. Sheesh!"
Mecca laughed again. "I know it's a big deal to you, and I know how picky I am about my
own
food, but . . . Ours isn't the only food order in the world. They probably take hundreds if not
thousands
of orders every day, and, working in the food service industry, I know how hard it can be to keep one order straight from another, which is why I always tell my staff to continuously question the customer to make sure they get each order as accurate as possible. Some people will tell you when you've made a mistake, which is good because it gives you the opportunity to correct the situation: go above and beyond the consumers expectations.
But
if they don't like the food, and they don't say anything, chances are they won't come back, and they'll probably advise people they know not to eat there . . . Which is why you have to be so careful with customer service. Word spreads like wildfire, man."
"Shitty burger," he cursed again.
"Well, when we get to the campsite I promise I'll cook you something you
do
like to eat, and mayonnaise is nowhere in our food supplies."
He stuck his tongue out. "Blech."
"Last one."
He opened his mouth and chomped down. "Exactly where is the 'nugget' located on a chicken, anyway?"
Mecca shrugged. "The real mystery is chicken fingers. They don't even
have
fingers."
"Touche."
Having completed their fast food meal, she crushed the cardboard container and stuffed it back in the bag, then crumpled it, dropping it on the floor, the combined waste landing with a thud, the uneaten burger weighing it down. She then stretched her legs out in front of her and placed her feet flat on the floor. "Remember when Happy Meals came in boxes?"
"What?" he laughed.
"Happy Meals," she repeated. "They used to come in brightly-colored boxes instead of overly-recycled, completely transparent, totally washed out bags."
Daniel nodded. "Yeah! And they used to have collectors' glasses, actual
glass
and not that smelly plastic/acrylic shit."
"And lunchboxes used to be made of metal: embossed, painted and bolted together."
His smile grew. "Yeah. That shit was built to last; I think I still have one or two of mine. Up in my dad's attic somewhere. All the 'cool' kids had metal lunchboxes, and everybody else had to brown bag it."
"I had Strawberry Shortcake, Holly Hobby, Pac-Man, and Mickey Mouse and the Ice Capades. Then they just . . . stopped making them, I guess, and I had to get the plastic ones."
"I can't remember all the ones I had, but I know Star Wars and The Dukes of Hazzard were among them. And Styrofoam! Everything used to come in Styrofoam."
Mecca nodded. "And the drinks used to stay cold, and the burgers used to stay hot."
"And the shit didn't fall all over the place. You actually got your food kind of the way they made it."
"So you could just eat it instead of reassembling it."
He smiled and laughed, a bright twinkle in his eyes. "Whatever happened to those days?"
"Environmentalism. Styrofoam was non-biodegradable, so, after public and political pressure, they stopped using it."
Daniel scoffed. "There's no such thing as environmentalism."
"What?"
"Seriously. Nobody wants to save the earth; they just wanna save a buck."
Mecca purred, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other on his knee. "Forget French or Italian, cynicism is the true language of romance. Talk
logic
to me, baby."
"Will you quit?"
"No-no, tell me more about 'Forget the world; save a dollar."
Daniel sighed. "I don't wanna start a fight about this."
"Who says I wanna fight?"
"C'mon. You recycle
everything
. They don't have a program in your neighborhood, so you make a special trip to the recycling center just to drop off your junk. You use those crazy little canvas bags to pack your groceries in. You drive a Hybrid. Given, it's an SUV, but still . . . And your restaurant recycles;
you
make them do it."
"True," she nodded, "but like you said, sometimes it's less about ecology and more about economy. Some people (like me) don't really give a shit about the big picture, and how what we do today affects what we can and can't do tomorrow. I'm a realist, Daniel, and I live in the real world. This so-called War on Terrorism isn't really about 'terrorism;' it's about oil. They have it, we want it, so let's take it.
"As a result, the price of oil has skyrocketed, and the price of gas is ridiculous, which is making the price of
everything
ridiculous. Now, does the average American give a shit that oil is a non-renewable natural resource, and once existing supplies are gone we're screwed? No. They're just sick of paying so much for gas that they'll do whatever they have to in order to avoid it. Which means buying smaller cars that use less gas, buying fuel-efficient cars that get more miles per gallon, or buying a car that relies on an alternate source of energy, be it ethanol, electricity or whatever else it is they're coming up with."
"Diesel," Daniel said.
