The People on the Porch

I get out of the car with a bag of McDonald's in my hand. I see people on the porch. They look dim, almost green under the porch lamp. I clutch my bag of McDondald's with a clear resolve, to get inside, to devour my tasteless, oh so greasy quarter pounders. This is my secret, my guilty little secret. Junk food. And I know, I just know that they will say something negative about McDonald's, about multi-national corporations, my support of western capitalism. Greed, they'll say. Death and greed...and deforestation. I just want to eat, no inhale, my junk food in peace. This is my reward. I deserve this. I work.

I get up on the porch. They start singing happy birthday. I grin bashfully. Aw, thanks, I say. I say hello and thanks. They smile, give me a gift even--a book about Narnia.

"What's that in your hand?" Here it comes, yep, I knew it. "Is that McDonald's?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"You want to see your next birthday?"

"..."

"You won't if you keep eating that stuff!" After watching Super Size Me, they are convinced that french fries can't be digested, that they just sit there in your bowls leaking saturated fat directly into the blood stream.

"You son of a beep," I say, beeping out the bitch part, laughing, "you have to have a cause, don't you."

I make my way into the lobby, to my front door. Freedom. I hear thier voices receding, talking about, sure enough, the rain forests.