Do you know, can you possibly even imagine, that it took over two minutes to get my cheeseburger the other day? I pulled up to the little speak-into-it thing and ordered a cheeseburger, large fries, and a Diet Coke. The Diet Coke is because when you have a twelve hundred calorie burger and nine-hundred more calories in the fries, it all averages out with the Diet Coke. You know, the Diet Coke has no calories at all, so that is one of three things with no calories. So that brings the average calories of that meal down to fourteen hundred calories. (2,100 calories divided by three things, times two.) I am going on a diet starting tomorrow (that’s when I start all my diets) and henceforth I will order a cheeseburger, large fries, and two Diet Cokes. This will bring the average calories of that meal down to one thousand and fifty calories. (2,100 calories divided by four things, times two). After placing my order I pulled up to the little window where you pay, which took a total of 90 seconds. Then I pulled up to the next little window where you pick up your stuff. Here I encountered a problem. It took an additional one minute and nineteen seconds to get my meal. That totals out to an incredible two minutes and forty-nine seconds. You call that fast food? I mean come on! How long can it take to grab a pre-made burger off the warming rack and scoop a couple of fries out of the bin? And I needed to get through that line fast, because you can’t buy stuff without people talking at you. Then you can’t focus on the important stuff, like listening to the car radio. I didn’t want any chatter about catsup to disrupt my Rush Limbaugh. So come on people, execute. This stuff is important.
But that experience was nothing compared to my last trip to KFC. I ordered the twelve piece bucket, as usual. The usual question about original recipe or extra crispy came at me from behind the counter, and my usual response that there is only original recipe went right on back. With what, believe me, was a very sorry excuse for an apologetic look the guy said they had only five pieces of original recipe up and ready. What? This is KFC! How can you not have original recipe? We have some more in the fryer, he informed me. It will be ready in twelve minutes. Twelve minutes? Twelve minutes? You’ve got to be kidding me! This is America. We get our chicken in 90 seconds flat. Anything less is unpatriotic. You’re letting the nation down. The most galling thing is that probably four out of the last five times I went to KFC they didn’t have enough original recipe up to fill a twelve piece bucket. That actually is completely true, and I am presently boycotting KFC because I refuse to wait twelve minutes for my chicken. I deserve better. I am an American. I went back to my car, drove to a Taco Bell fourteen minutes across town, and got my tacos in two minutes flat! So there!
On the way over to the Taco Bell, somebody got in my way. He was only driving 33 in a 25 mph zone. Come on! Everybody knows you can go ten miles over the speed limit without getting a ticket. And likewise, everybody also knows that all automotive manufacturers tweak their speed-o-meters to read a few miles per hour faster than you’re actually going. So I was losing out on at least five mph in the case presently being discussed. I moved up to three inches behind his bumper until that bonehead got out of my way by pulling off into the ditch, rather rapidly. I’m sure nobody was hurt. And by the time the police arrived I was long gone. So everything worked out for everybody.
True story; a few weeks back I drove home from my daughter’s house in Stevens Point. It is 122 miles, and I made the trip in 105 minutes. I have no idea how that happened, officer.
Do you remember Pop Tarts? Well I guess they’re still around, but come on, they were introduced in 1964. You put them in a toaster. Nowadays we use microwave ovens to get warm cinnamon buns in 30 seconds flat. That perky little noise we used to get percolating our coffee? Now we all have Keurig’s. But why spend any time in the kitchen at all? Most of us dispense with 30 second cinnamon buns and 60 second coffee. That’s 90 seconds completely wasted when we can pick up our breakfast at Starbucks along with our $7.00 cups of caffeine. Sure, you might wait five minutes for your café mocha, but you’ll be so hopped up you’ll be moving at jitter speed the rest of the morning. Besides, Starbucks gets a pass on speed, because they’re cool.
In this country, it’s all about progress. First it was popcorn popped in a kettle of warm butter, which gave way to dry hot-air poppers, which gave way to paper bags of seeds soaked in microwave friendly chemicals. Yummy! First there was wise old Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News. Then there was cable TV with maniacal Morning Joe and his girlfriend Mika. Now we just pull out our cell phones if we want to know what the crazy man said ten minutes ago. (Don’t even pretend to not know who the crazy man is.) There is pizza delivered to your door in minutes, TV On Demand, broader broadband so we don’t get that buffering thing when we download those videos of kitties. (I saw a calico sit her little butt down on a man’s twenty ounce steak the other day. It was so cute.) And now Amazon is experimenting with package delivery using whirring little drones flying up and down your street. Imagine the barking dogs and the loonies with shotguns. But those drones don’t need to worry about boneheads driving only eight mph over the speed limit. That’s what matters here people.
The point I am trying to make is that time is money. A wasted moment is a wasted opportunity. We’ve got to hurry. We’ve got to get things done. Well, actually by we I mean you. I just retired. Holy crap! I suddenly have no idea what I will do all day. But whatever it is, you can bet I will get it done in a hurry, because I am a good, patriotic, red-blooded American.