COLUMN: Don’t buy the lie of 24-hours drive-thrus
Sometimes we try to convince ourselves that 24-hour Mexican food is healthy. We tell ourselves they use fresher ingredients than the burger place down the street and the homemade grease is much healthier than the mass-produced kind. We tell ourselves this lie at 3 a.m. and get in our cars to go get some cheesy potatoes, deep fried and covered in guacamole and sour cream. But sometimes we can’t avoid the absolute truth: We could be making better decisions if we want to live to see 50.
I was recently forced to accept reality on such a night. I’m preparing to graduate and, having performed 10 push-ups earlier in the day and needing now to finish a 10-page paper I had yet to start by morning, I felt I owed it to myself to eat at least one burrito. I got in my Pontiac Bonneville – the height of early ’90s luxury – and headed west. The car immediately dinged, the “check gages” light coming on as the needle showed below empty. Now came the dilemma. Do I fill up the car or do I go grab my food? Even though the restaurant is open 24 hours, there are only short spans of time when I can convince myself it’s a wise option to eat there. I was afraid getting gas would lead to a moment of clarity at the pump, one that would force me to turn around and go home.
Rather than make this move, I headed for the restaurant, fully intending to hit the gas station on the way back. But intentions can’t fill an empty tank. Intentions can’t make a car’s gas mileage increase. No, all intentions can do is bring the intender into a deeper sense of the heroic self, the self that, yes, will be able to eat a burrito at 3 a.m. with no consequences.
But there at the drive-thru, I was forced to open my eyes and see the dreadful reality of my existence. After ordering my food, I attempted to pull forward. The car shuddered and shut down. I turned the key, but the car refused to start. Though it should have been, this was not my moment of realization. Instead of accepting reality, I put on my hazard lights, apologetically waved to the car behind me, and ran up to the window. I shouted in, getting the attention of one of the employees. Once he neared me, rather than asking for his help to move my car, I first handed him some cash to pay for my food. Styrofoam boxes in hand, I looked back at the car and realized this was my life now. I was holding late-night burritos and cheesy potatoes and my car was dead in front of the dull, dirty menu sign.
All the times I spent shaking my head at the potheads in front of me in line or the trio of drunk women trying so hard to flirt with my friend or the master’s students trying to make it through one more paper, those times turned back on me now. This was my reality, the one where a couple employees from a 24-hour joint help me push my car to an empty parking lot where I sit in the driver’s seat and eat my food, afraid that, if I first go look for gas, the potatoes might get cold and soggy, and no one likes that. At 3 a.m. I accepted my life had become what it was always meant to be. As a senior, it’s strange to realize only now, three years on from entering college, that all this time I’ve fueled my essays on grease and meat. Now, through the hazy gloom of morning inversion, I saw clearly my own nothingness. I’d become an academic.
– Kendall Pack is a senior majoring in literary studies. He is the director of workshops at Logan Out Loud Comedy Theatre. He can be contacted at kendallpack@gmail.com.