Guard Your Taste

I always loved the tale of the Trojan Horse from the Iliad.  The Iliad follows the epic battle of the Greeks verses the Trojans. After ten years of fighting at the wall of their enemies Odysseus figures out a plan to get his men over an  Trojan wall.  He devises the idea to build a large horse to place men inside and leave it for his enemies to take behind enemy lines.

I tell you this not just because I’m an English Geek but it reminded me yesterday how sinister gifts can be.  At work I noticed a coupon book to a local fast food restaurant.  I will refrain from mentioning the name of the establishment or it’s location.  I am not a fast food guy per say and pride myself with eating healthy most of the time, but I had a time crunch and a buy one get one free meal in my hand so I figured what’s the worst that can happen.  I didn’t know it but that innocent piece of paper was my own Trojan Horse.

I arrived with paper work in toe and figured I could dine in and get some work done, two birds, right… well things didn’t got as well as I hoped.  I ordered a burger with out a certain sauce on it and was starving by this point.  I sat down right in front of the counter and waited and waited.  I seven minutes into it I approached the counter and asked about the progress of my food… now if you know me you’d believe me when I exactly said, “I’d like to know about the progress of my food”  No anger use no, tone expressed.  I did direct my message to a manager, lets call him Jerry, who sprung into action.  I believe Jerry was embarrassed because I had been the only customer to have ordered in the dining room in the past ten minutes.  During this time Jerry tried to pacify me with a free dessert.   Honestly I was about to wolf down two burgers in a high speed car ride to my next appointment, I didn’t need more empty calories clogging my veins.  True to Jerry’s word, 30 seconds later two burgers were brought to me… and low and behold there was special sauce on each.  I’ll simply say that I got my refund and left politely after the Jerry got a refresher on how to open a register.

Here’s the thing, I was furious at this point, I was late to my next meeting, my belly was empty and I felt completely annoyed.  And I was reminded of two things, first it is best to be still and don’t overreact.  Many times in my life when people have treated me poorly in a spontaneous moment I have always cautioned on the side of calm.  This has won me over with students, family, stranger and my wife.  Flipping out at Jerry or the poor teenage girl that never checked on my order or the fry-guy who perhaps put my meal in a to-go bag won’t have done anything to make my full or satisfied at that moment.  There is a good scene from a great movie titled “You’ve Got Mail where the male lead who is sarcastic explains unknowingly to the woman of his dreams about speaking sarcastically, “I must warn you that when you finally have the pleasure of saying the thing you mean to say at the moment you mean to say it, remorse inevitably follows.”  Later in the movie she does exactly just that… which changes everything for her.

The second thing I remembered is that it served me right to go into a fast food joint and being disappointed.  When did it change, when did it happen, when did we give up on eating great quality food, I mean no offense to fast food chain… no I do mean to offend them all.  How dare they serve us cheap food and get away with it!  Well here is the thing, we let them.   We have allowed ourselves to just pick up quick meals here and there, on the go.  ”America runs on Dunkin”…”Make a run for the border”…”Your Way, Right Away”.  Fast food have been trying for decades to get you to take advantage of quick service in an absence of quality, nutrition and taste.  I could go on and on about how much healthier it is when you don’t eat a super-sized load of processed oil enriched potato.   Or I can compare the cost of buying a chicken breast and cooking it and getting the equivalent in nuggets at chain restaurant.  But we’ve heard it all before, if I can’t sell you on these points I need to at least remind you that you deserve quality food and service.  Don’t sell yourself short.

Some options to consider:

Plan ahead…keep a snack of your choice in your car.  If you have something that will keep without refrigeration, there is no shame in putting it in a ziplock bag.  (trail mix, granola or protein bars and some dried fruit). 

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