If you ever ask for more than one soda in a fast food drive-through because you're embarrassed at how much food you're getting and you want to convince the cashier that you're ordering for a group of people, then I say this to you with great empathy and understanding: knock it off.
You aren't fooling anyone. Drive-through attendants watch people do that all day and all night, one after the other— a veritable parade of overweight customers wearing loose-fitting dark blue pullover sweaters, driving minivans, and ordering extra fries and drinks to save themselves fifteen seconds of self-generated humiliation.
They don't care. They aren't going to scold you for ordering a Double Whopper and a BK Broiler. They aren't going to wait until you're out of earshot, and say something nasty about you to their coworkers. They aren't going to sadly shake their heads in disappointment at your lack of self-control. Their imperative is to pressure you into super-sizing everything (if the manager is watching,) and to get you through the chute with a minimum of thought and effort. Save your posturing, and explanation, and mock concern for "getting the order right" so you "don't forget something for the folks at home." It's all wasted effort, because if you don't have a carload of passengers with you, the attendant is rightly going to assume that all that food is for you, just like he did last week, and the week before when you ordered all the same stuff, and it won't disquiet him one whit, because as far as he's concerned, you're just one more customer sitting between him and his next cigarette break out by the dumpster. So stop it.
Order what you want, and don't make it worse by adding stuff that you don't want, but will end up eating anyway, out of obligation, guilt, or whatever. It's cheaper, and it's better for you. Besides, the simple act of being honest about overeating will bring you one step closer to doing something about it.
Last updated 24 March 2003
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