Monday, February 14, 2005

Thoughts whilst queuing in McDonalds

i'm lovin' it

If you really want to see how our civilisation can reach a utopian state of harmony and interoperations head down to any McDonalds in a large city during a weekday lunch hour. Peoples from seemingly every nationality on the planet work together in almost perfect unity, both sexes, all sexuality’s, all colours, every creed, race and religion both young and old (thirty) battling for a common goal…

…to get through their shift and not think about what it is they are doing.

Exploited? Of course.

Hawking the detritus of a corrupt and bourgeois society? (Eye and testicle meat patties, hmm yummy) Oh yes.

But, they work together free from ethnic, sexual, religious and age prejudice. And that’s the point, together. Not fighting, not bickering, not even occasionally sniping. In front of the customer they are the very symbol of accord and professionalism.

Horrible.

Another fucking queue. They don’t queue like this abroad y’know. Oh no, over there it’s a free for all from the get-go. (‘Over there’ being the generic term for a lack of specific region identification, particularly favoured by the dumb.)

Old people will have you believe that you are a disgraceful disrespectful hooligan if you don’t let them to the front of the queue, and how in their day it was only common curtsey. This is nonsense of course, they only started queuing during the Second World War through rationing. It’s not like for us Brits queuing is generically encoded into us like our terrific senses of humour;

‘Look how that Pakkis head caves in when you kick it hard with your Ben Sherman’s, my my that’s really funny ain’t it Merry Poppins!?!’

Or our sense of fair play, chant;

“Your wife takes it up the arse and we hope your first born dies of cancer”

And that’s from your fans!

Oh yes we’re a great people us Brits, proud to be loud and violent and right and first with cricket and concentration camps.

Another fucking queue, in a fast food restaurant, another fucking queue.

The absolute worst thing about queuing is the time it gives you to mull over the guilt of eating this shit. Go on, turn around, walk out, get a salad from PrĂȘt a Manger, get out. Skip lunch, you had a big breakfast and lets face it you could do with losing a pound or two.

Trouble is I’m rooted now; I’ve been here five minutes. If I walk out you can guarantee the queue will vanish and everyone left will be served within seconds. If I’m here another five minutes so be it. Yes I’m sweating now, yes I feel sick and dizzy now. Of course I can feel my shirt slowly wrapping itself to my body like kitchen roll on urine. Yes the guy in front has BO so bad it actually smells of faeces and the kids behind me keep pushing against me as they fight and scream at each other over who’ll get the cunting Pikachu. If I see that yellow fucker I‘ll stick it right up those screaming little bastards I swear.

Despicable brats and their thick parents barely able to change channel on their 42” Grundig widescreen plasma TVs, linked to satellite, linked to digital, linked to DVD, linked to the ministry of thought like these morons need another four hundred channels of game shows, sitcoms and reality TV to dumb them back to Cro-Magnon man.

Reality TV the ultimate insult to the Martian found scraping of intelligent life that sticks to your inside of your skull like a Bathroom Duck resistant diarrhoea stain. They’re not even bothering to write, produce, direct and act anymore. Just take your Neanderthal cousins stick a camera in their retarded celebrity desperate faces, sit back with enough coffee to keep you awake through the next ice age and enjoy. Here’s to happiness.

Do you enjoy it? Of course you do, you’re glued to families who sit around and watch TV whilst they pick their noses, scratch their arses and let their Pit Bull Terriers lick their faces with their shit drenched tongues in those tiny one bedroom, cockroach infested council flats located in a neighbourhood so rough even extremist Islamic suicide bombers would rather ditch their charges and join a Buddhist retreat in Tibet than venture in. The more socially run down, disenfranchised and violently bitter they are the better. All the while you sit back with your trendy A1/B1 friends and chortle. How could they possibly live like that? Isn’t it a shame? Society is so divisive. I blame the government, I blame education, I blame religion, I blame the parents, I blame the children, I blame the drug laws, the housing laws, the single parents, in fact anyone who comes into my feeble Waitrose sushi selection addled brain.

Fuck that I blame you.

You don’t get it do you? They’ve finely tricked us into be entertained in front of a mirror, not even dogs are dumb enough to fall for that for long. But you are, and you lap it up like a crack whore who thinks being anally fucked is a sign of affection. Worse still you fear and despise those around you who resist this vile all pervading addiction;

“What do you mean you didn’t sit and watch that guy in the box for 40 days, don’t you find it fascinating”.

“No I didn’t. Was the box bullet proof?” I kept asking whilst he hung there. Forty fucking days and not one single soul took a shot at him, typical apathetic bloody British public.

I partitioned for us to get the Washington sniper over on a 24-hour visa, I’d have vouched for him.

“Pest control” I’d say.

“Taking care of a pest”. He’d say.

“Just as long as it’s the cunt in the box you’re good for 24 hours’ Immigration would say, “And here’s a rifle, a sight and some bullets”.

They used to send us to war, our frail bodies torn apart by shards of white hot metal in the name of an abstract concept of freedom, now they send us to ITV, and we atrophy physically and mentally to Coronation Street, Morse (RIP), Taggart (RIP), The Bill (big shout out to DCI Burnside) the nightly news in the name of an abstract concept of entertainment.

It’s the end of our culture you know. They say the Greeks fell when they became obsessed with celebrity and the trivia of society, it can’t be long now can it?

We’re Ripley and we’re having Now magazine stuffed down our throat by a violently automated capitalist sense off self-preservation. It’s gone mad it’s out of control, it’s screaming and you don’t see it. Its robotic life fluid trickling down it’s temple from your one weak attempt to strike back when you were a teen. But not anymore, let it choke you. Parker isn’t going to save you.

“No me’ lady”

They wave the bad behaviour of our favourite Celebs around with one hand all the while their other hand is mounting cameras on street corners, imposing ID cards and carry guns standing over us as we shop for bargains at the Bull Ring, and they tell us its in our best interest. And we’re safe. Safe from who? Safe from what? I’m glad you love reality TV so much because guess what? You’re the star and you don’t even know it, except this show is called;

‘We’re watching you and waiting for you to step out of line”.

We talk about last nights show whilst we make our morning cup of java, energy juice, nicotine break, heroin stop, whatever you call your current reliance.

“Did you see that hilarious bit last where the poor chump thought he was part of an equal and caring society with a safety net for its most vulnerable which ultimately reflects its strengths, until that is he made a mistake and instead of being reasonable punished and then helped back through rehabilitation we bayed for his blood and he was executed by the state he’d paid taxes into for all of his adult life.”

Hang the murderer, hang the rapist, hang the paedophile, hang the TV licence evader, hang the reader.

I dare you to read a book other than the television guide and no, HEAT magazine does not count as literate writing in any true sense.

Honestly I swear these people think books are for wankers and queers.

To be honest though, they’re not far wrong.

“Do you want fries with that?”


“Yes please” I say, “large ones and a coke”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know McDonalds own PrĂȘt a Manger?

Herge Smith said...

Yes eddie, but the point is a nice salad sandwich on wholemeal bread is less harmful than a big mac, and large fries. Plus typically you get less abortion dodgers running around in Pret.