[Sca-cooks] Cornbread....

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Philippa Alderton:
>S'OK. Adamantius admitted to me the other day, that he
>went to a McDonalds, as his "Restaurant of Choice".
>You know I've been cackling ever since ;-)
>
>Care to explain, A?

I hadn't intended to (not one of my more glorious moments), but it
seems my hand has been forced ;-).

It is around seven PM, and I'm in the airport in Cincinnati. I have
been up since 3:45 AM, spending most of the day either on board
planes or waiting for my flight. (I took my son to Space Camp in
Huntsville, Alabama, dropped him off, and returned to New York the
same day...)

Anyway, after some unspeakable iced coffee, made by pouring dregs
from a pot of boiled coffee over ice from a soda machine, buffered
somewhat with room-temp little vials of alleged half-and-half, the
coffee is eating a hole in my stomach, and I'm thinking, "So, this is
what an ulcer feels like." I remember that I hadn't eaten anything
all day

Now, Delta Airlines' smiling staff are doing "random security
checks"; in other words, pulling anyone who is not a middle-aged,
white male Republican in Bermuda shorts, black socks and white shoes
off the line and subjecting them to a public, full-fledged strip
search and rectal examination -- yes, I am exaggerating. Very
slightly. No actual rectums were harmed in the filming of this motion
picture, but the "random" aspect of it seemed a pretty frightening
mix of racial profiling and social angst. It did seem they were
searching all African-Americans, Latinos, anyone wearing ethnic dress
of any kind, and a lot of skinhead punk-types, deviant New Yorkers,
etc. I can only assume they didn't spot the fact that I wasn't
wearing white shoes, and took me for a Republican, because they
didn't seem to think I was a terrorist. I _thought_ about mentioning
to somebody that I was a member of a subversive organization (most on
this list are), but decided discretion was the better part of valor.

I have no comment to make on the rectitude of all this, you can form
your own opinion. Just the facts, ma'am.

Now, on the other side of me from this phenomenon is a McDonald's,
with a relatively short line. Why it had the shortest line will be
evident shortly, but I was a little uncomfortable about waiting a
long time to acquire anything from KFC (who also seemed to be selling
cheese steaks), fake Pizza Hut pizza, etc. There was another option,
but I forget what it was, and the line was long. So, I resign myself
to buying the plainest possible burger, and possibly some kind of
chemical shake, figuring it would coat my stomach. I get to the head
of the line, and put my hands on the counter, which immediately stick
as if to rubber cement.

I look back over the counter, and see into the kitchen, and it
appears to be staffed entirely by Afghans, dressed in an interesting
mix of traditional, tribal hill attire and McDonald's uniforms. They
all seem to be shouting in their native language. I probably imagined
some of what I thought I heard and saw (for example, I think they
probably were _not_ actually playing a game with an inflated goatskin
in the back of the kitchen, but I may have seen this after all), but
I am certain I spot a staff member cheerfully shovelling what looks a
lot like congealed grease from the floor, into the handwashing sink.
Deceased members of the local Board of Health turn over in their
graves...

I escape with my life and a Quarter Pounder which is probably no
worse than at any other McDonald's anywhere in the world, but I think
it's kind of a shame that they're pulling innocent people off the
line and searching their teeth for fillings with a metal detector,
with all this going on 25 feet away. I wanted to see these culinary
terrorists nailed, and the security people are busy harrassing
innocent old African-American men...

So, I guess I'm in trouble now, huh? Remember, Phlip, you asked ;-)

Adamantius

--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER