Pee Wee Size Me

Pee Wee Size Me

Kennesaw

Once as I sat in a fast food restaurant, I listened to a young father giving his son the devil. It seemed that junior was trying to skip the more, substantial part of his crappy meal and go directly to the sweat treat, meant to be the big finale.

I struggled to eat my not so balanced meal, not only eating everything unfit for human consumption, all at one time, but also eating the worst possible examples of those things, as well. The father was preachin and teachin, sounding like a cross between the church lady and the Reverend Jessie Jackson. I and my cheeseburger were on the verge of going down to the alter to be saved. With my mouth stuffed with a burger and enough fries to recreate Mt. Rushmore, I dared a glance toward their table. The kid was pitching a hissie fit and trying anything possible to avoid his smaller version of a burger and fries and to go directly to the cookie, which would likely, given the opportunity, glow in the dark.

If the kid was guilty was not the issue, the father, having no problem enjoying his balanced meal continued his tirade about the importance of proper eating habits. His continued insistence was so loud and forceful that others in the restaurant cast worried glances his way in case someone needed to intercede. I was shocked at what I found on the father’s tray, he was eating five large orders of fries. I sure hope that kid learned something about eating properly.

I remember when a coke was only a nickel, and you had two choices, an eight ounce or sixteen ounce bottle, both the same price. This was before everyone in the world decided to get into the soda business. Why would a person buy an eight ounce Coke when there was a sixteen ounce chilling in the cooler next to it? This was when everything was called a Coke. My grandpa wondered out loud until the day he died, why anyone thought Coke needed any help in the first place.

Things began to change in America as soon the twenty ounce bottle made its appearance, that was OK by me, I followed it on up. I stayed on the train as the number of ounces gained and gained speed in their gaining. I got off the train somewhere around sixty-four ounces. How much coke, can the average kidney process?

Someone had discovered that if it got bigger it made more money, and soon the race was on. Everything from Coke to toilet paper expanded to insane proportions. Super-size became the new large and mega size became the new insanity. There had to be a high, or more appropriately low water mark somewhere. Where in the world, do they find all those potatoes? The top five fast food joints, not too fast any more, by the way, make enough fries to build a new Hover Damn, if, in fact, we thought we needed a new one. Where would it be built? Probably Illinois, put a little tatters in with that pork.

At some point, the limit of gargantuan sized burger and fries had to be reached. The American public can only remain stupid for so long. Okay sorry, but if either of us believes that, one of us is an idiot. So, more aptly, a few Americans began screaming about the destructive properties of fast food and the super sizing of not only fast food, but those of us who consume it.

Finally, the fast food industry stepped forward and decided to make a few changes. They are now on the road to pee wee sizing everything. You can now get itty bitty burgers, hot dogs, corn dogs and even tiny imitation ribs. Presumably this is meant to decrease the ever rising cost of cheap, not too cheap, fast, not too fast, food. If you can believe they would advertise this as a way to reduce chloric intake, you will believe anything. Truth is as the size grows smaller, the price per ounce grows larger, just as it did on the way up the ladder; it is doing on the way down the ladder. Count on it, between the government, oil companies, insurance companies and fast food joints, Americans have little chance. Plus, as with all things, if you are going to make it smaller, well, it will most certainly be cheaper by the dozen. Somehow such things, once thought to be as constant as gravity have all been transformed into pennies by the profit margins of the fast food industry.

No matter what you’ve heard, big or little, rattlesnakes, guns, girl’s fathers, fast cars combined with slow brains and fast food will all kill you.

Here, have a dozen sliders, a truck full of fries, a sixty-four ounce Coke, some fried ice cream and hush yo mouth.