Fast food is becoming fast frustration

What is it about fast food? We all know it's death on a bun, not to mention a crater in your wallet, and yet we do it anyway.

And with the way customers get so angry, why isn't crime sky-high at McDonald's? I'm just waiting for the day that some poor soul on the brink takes a baseball bat to the drive-thru speaker system.

Before you get to the speaker, however, you must deal with the lines. Of course, there are always two for one drive-thru menu.

Not only do you have to monitor vehicles leaving their parking spots, but you've got to protect your spot in line, or some soccer mom in a van full of kids is going to steal it while you are cussing the guy impatiently tapping his brake to get backed out.

If you do manage to keep your place, you are still completely irritated by the experience once you hit the menu. And the soccer mom is glaring because you should have done the chivalrous thing and let her go first to quiet the screaming children.

Then there is the pressure of making a quick decision because everyone in line is staring at you through their windows and practicing some deep sighing exercises.

In your haste, you barely pay attention to what you are ordering.

Now the angry train can go one of two ways. Either the employee running the headset doesn't repeat your order back to you, or through the garble, you couldn't understand "cheeseburger" from "salad" if you wasted the time to get out and put your ear to the speaker, which you won't because the people behind you are starting to inch up to your bumper.

Shooting a dirty look towards the mom behind you, you resign yourself to driving ahead, despite the inevitable order confusion you know is underway.

Pickles? Of course not. Even if they got it right, you'll only get one, maybe two on that burger. And no onions? Forget it. What they will do is get ketchup everywhere.

Hereafter, the food can no longer be considered "fast" since you'll be pulling over to clean up the mess on the steering wheel and all over your pants.

That's if they gave you any napkins.

So up to the window you drive, already defeated. Fork over your hard-earned cash and watch the bustle inside while you feel doom approaching.

The woman behind you is already riding your bumper again, hot at the handles to get those miraculous Happy Meals that she so desperately hopes will solve all her problems for the next 20 minutes.

With the way she's leaning into her steering wheel and foaming at the mouth, you are slightly afraid to survey your bag's contents when it gets rammed into your outstretched hand.

You hear a very loud bang, and look up to see the drive-thru window already closed. You are too late.

Drive off, my friend. Only carnage awaits you if, upon receiving your food, you hesitate for more than 30 seconds.

Your brake lights begin to gleam red in the eyes of the soccer mom behind you. She needs that food more than you do.

With a heavy hand, you pull out the French fries - a meager portion for such a tall, regal box. That box wouldn't look so proud and shining if it, too, saw the sadly limp fries that you now gaze upon.

No burger? Having reassured yourself of what you ordered 20 times by now, you are sure you yelled "cheeseburger", not chicken nuggets. You don't even like chicken nuggets, but it's beyond your course for recall.

And you know why?

Because you don't want to take back your food, as meekly as possible, and be afraid from the first bite to last that the disgruntled grill cook has defiled it in some way.

The damage is done, you say, never again. But you'll be back.

Just wait until there's nothing to eat at home, or you are rushing around town with no time for real food, or the kids are whining in the backseat. You'll see.

They always come back.

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Katy Blair, an Effingham native, is a Globe reporter. She can be reached at 367-0583, Ext. 214, or katyblair@npgco.com.