Picture, if you will, a cold January night, in a time that has been lost to the realms of distant memory (my freshman year). My roommate and I were just hanging out in a little place we liked to call Tucker Hall. It was a weeknight, and there really wasn’t much of anything going down.
Feeling a bit hungry and a bit more adventurous, we decided to brave the elements and find ourselves an after-midnight snack. I had a hankering for a tasty taco treat and expressed my intentions about our course of action.
“As your roommate, I feel it is my duty to advise you that we should immediately make our way to Western Boulevard and eat as many tacos as is humanly possible,” my friend said as we slipped on our shoes.
Our normal late-night course of action would have involved a trip to my favorite purveyor of waffles on Hillsborough Street, however as we were at the time lacking motor transportation (and probably would have been branded a “danger to society” with such resources) we decided upon an establishment within reasonable walking distance. Upon our arrival we found the dining room closed, as is normally the case with such after-hours establishments. Undiscouraged, we walked up to the drive-through menu and awaited the familiar grainy greeting while we planned our meal in greater detail based on the menu information.
After about five minutes with no acknowledgement of our presence, frustration began to set in. I walked to the door to check the hours, sure enough the drive-through was supposed to be open. Meanwhile my roommate was being categorically ignored by the employee working the window on the other side of the restaurant. As I walked around he was waving his wallet at the window, physically expressing that his money was as good as everyone else’s and he would really like a burrito right about now.
“What if this had been a real taco emergency? What if I had been really drunk and my only hope for survival was a Mexican pizza, stat?” I thought as I tried to console my taco-less, rejected soul.
There was something slightly disturbing about this thought. No doubt if such an emergency had existed, the only solution would have been to drive to the taco restaurant. But driving could in no way constitute a legal action on my behalf, and I doubted seriously that in such a situation a friend would have been in any better state to transport my sorry butt through the drive-through.
For years the fast food industry has been attacked by all sorts of interests complaining about the American obesity epidemic. However, a far more grievous issue has been lost amid the hail of bullets fired by foolish people that eat too much food and then wonder why they are fat.
Our roads are filled with every sort of inebriated person, questing for a quick fodder fix. Drunkards are attracted to fast food like mosquitoes to a bug lamp: tacos and greasy hamburgers are an irresistible force. Nonetheless, the solution is not to close such establishments early.
Can you imagine a bunch of drunks trying to cook their own fast food? What a catastrophe!
Instead of frying potatoes while T-bagging the guy passed out in the corner, the hooligans would end up throwing potatoes at bums from their fourth-story windows and the poor sop that passed out would wake up in the morning with several crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, lightly salted fingers. That’s only the horror of French fries; don’t even get me started on the dangers of messing with nacho-cheesy burritos under the influence of some intoxicant more vicious than our old friend ethanol.
Yes, it seems that drunks and other freaks of the night are best served by convenient, late-night fast food establishments, which brings me back to my original point: considering the average mental state of clientele frequenting the late-night grubbing establishments, the exclusion of foot traffic from the drive-through windows is a recipe for disaster.
While some responsible restaurants cater to foot traffic, most still turn away pedestrians after certain hours. Please, fast food establishments, at least give people of the night the option to walk safely to their meal of choice. Keep our roads safe. Do it for the kids.
Let KBall know just how irresponsible he is at [email protected].