Busy week over here. I’ve been running myself ragged with work, writing this novel, and studying for the LSAT. It’s a bitch, folks.

Anyway, I thought I’d take a break to fill you in on something that happened to me just this very evening.

I stopped off at my local McDonald’s to get something for dinner. McDonald’s is actually pretty good for someone who is on the Atkins Diet and doesn’t feel like cooking, or for someone who had been working too hard to waste a half hour shopping for food.

So I got a Bacon Ranch Salad with grilled chicken, which only has four grams of carbohydrates once you pick out the tomatoes and the carrots. No big deal.

The funny thing about this salad? If you compare the nutritional information of the salad with and without chicken on the McDonald’s website, you will discover that the grilled chicken has four grams of carbohydrates.

Now I hear you thinking, “How can chicken, which is protein, contain any carbohydrates?” Bingo. As it turns out, if you read the fine print, by which I mean the ingredients list, you will discover that the 4 grams come from the “special spices” used in seasoning the chicken. So which spice is responsible for sneaking in these 4 grams of carbs? Sugar.

Yep, sugar is one of the special spices used to flavor the grilled chicken. Can you fucking believe that?

Anyway, I walk into the store, and up to the superstar working the register. It’s not crowded. It’s vacant.

“Can I take your order?”

“Sure. I’ll have the Bacon Ranch Salad with grilled chicken,” I say to him even as backs away from me to the order list, where he deletes the previous order.

“Uh, I’m sorry,” he nods. “Could you say that again?”

“I’d like a Bacon Ranch Salad, with grilled chicken.” I say this somewhat slower so I won’t lose him with multisyllabic words.

“Would you like that with chicken?”

Unbelievable.

“I just said that I’d like grilled chicken on the salad.”

“Oh. Okay. One Bacon Ranch Salad with grilled chicken. Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like anything else?”

I must admit he stumped me for a moment. I was fooling my brain into forming other possibilities for the sentence that most recently flowed from his lips.

“No, I wouldn’t like anything else. That’ s what the negative response to ‘Is that all?’ means.”

His eyes glassed over.

He takes my money, returns correct change which I verify skeptically, and brings over my salad in a to-go bag.

“You forgot the fork and knife.”

He brings me a set of utensils.

“You forgot the salad dressing.”

He brings over a packet of Italian dressing.

“No. This is Italian dressing. The Bacon Ranch Salad surprisingly enough comes with Ranch dressing.”

Finally, he brings me the correct dressing packet, although he fails to take back the Italian, so I leave it on the counter. I back away quickly, shivering at the lack of comprehension inherent in his glassy gaze.

READ THESE JOURNALS Uncle Bob SaraH

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