While We Stood In Line

Something about fast food lures and repulses me at the same time. A couple times a year I get the urge and end up in line. Usually the person before me uses the same phrasing.

“I would like the…this” or “the that.”

And it doesn’t matter what variation of burger, size, or numbered combo, it’s the use of the word, “the” that I find most odd. “The,” The Big Mack, The Big Rib, The Sausage Biscuit, et cetera... As if there really is only one, sitting in the back, just like the picture, never manufactured, frozen and packaged for millions served, just waiting for you, Mr. Person Before Me. Don Draper put a sword through your gut, you didn’t even notice. You smiled while he did it. That marketing blade is a misguided American pride, in action.

“Fer here or to go?”

The cashier’s weary tone is all the hint we should ever really need. She’s on the other side of the counter. She’s seen the boxes come in. The nuggets in reconstituted splendor, the meat varieties of multiple animals reformed in manufactured cost effective genius. If she works at Arby’s she’s seen the roast beef arrive in its original uncooked liquid form. Getting hungry? There is no The about it. We are not individuals. We are a sheep in sheep’s clothing. The man before me holds the tray with pregnant privilege and smiles as he looks for a table. He chews in slow motion on the power of pride while Old Glory flaps outside near the playground…

“Can I help you sir… Can I help you!” ...startled from my trance.

In my head I hear myself ask the cashier, why did I come here? But that quick rational voice of a neurotransmitter fired rebuttal says in a flash…just order for now, and then never come back. So I do, I order, and I eat. On occasion, I eat fast food. I used to be mostly vegetarian. I’m one of those people. Still processed food in many cases. What’s more processed than soy and other ingredients made to look and taste like meat?

Link: In a recent news story I heard about a Bull that escaped from a slaughterhouse while waiting his turn in line, but he broke free of the plant, the machine, the rage, the revolutionary bovine courage! Rejecting the system of fast food oligarchy! He was later gunned down less than a mile away. Same fate? No, the writer concluded with an awe shucks tone, “…but the animal’s meat could no longer be processed due to lead poisoning…”


I grew up in Palm Coast Florida, a place I used to think of as the real geographical south Jersey, ripe with retired Yankee snow-birds. Not the soft voice NPR kind of Yankee. More so the “I’m Waukin’ Heah!” kind of yankee, permanently scarred by old habit big city shyster capitalism. My family moved to Florida when I was 12, I moved away from Palm Coast when I was nineteen. So, seven years of weirdness for a Kentucky boy with a natural fondness for my visions of California. In Palm Coast, at the grocery, Wal Mart, it didn’t matter, while in the checkout line I often got the same question,

“Ahh’ You in Line?”

What was it about my standing in line that made it look like I wasn't standing in line? I learned there was apparently, more than one way to stand in line. I was too relaxed! I noticed my elderly friends from the north often glared at the cashier, tapped their feet, had quickening respirations, stood as close as possible to me or whoever was in front of them, had their checkbook already in hand, and were quick to use the plastic conveyor-belt separator-stick to avoid excess conversation at the transaction point. In spite of all this the customer behind would never hesitate to ask a person like me, no matter how obvious the shortest distance between two points, the same concerned question, “Ahh’ you in line he-ah’?”


I learned three things in basic training. In the three months of my life wasted at Fort Sill Oklahoma in 2006, I learned to hold my tongue, hold my piss, and hold a rifle. The first part was the easiest. I had been holding my tongue my whole life. Rather than peer pressure, this was part of my initial attraction to alcohol when I was in my 20’s. It seemed to help me make up for lost time. But basic training was a sobering experience, in a wasted time kind of way.

Standing in platoon formations, waiting for extended periods of time for accountability, I had no trouble with silence. The exceptions came when the morons standing around me with stupid jokes and grab ass entertainment pushed me to the point of screaming. They weren't even talking to me. It was the fact I had to stand there trapped. I think I made one, maybe two friends in Basic. Otherwise, I hated them all. I was for all intent and purposes, Private Caulfield. We were a wild mix of civilians dressed up as soldiers waiting to go take our turn at an awkward war that was going down the tubes, but in the meantime we were supposed to bond with our peers and develop teamwork. Instead, for me, I agreed with the Drill Sergeants when they screamed derision, and took pleasure in getting “smoked” when the formation’s shenanigans pushed the D.S. too far. I found the NCOs likable compared to my fellow privates. This was backwards, but reversed after basic.

I’ve spent a lifetime of trying to figure out where I stand in formation. Maybe we all do this. I just feel like I have only learned where not to stand. In the front? In the back? On the left? The right? What formation am I falling into? Is there a formation? Is there more than one formation? Can I leave the formation? Can the formation change? Can I change regardless of the formation? Am I just standing in line? A group of individuals? An individual group vs. another individual group?

It makes sense though that Libertarians are such a full spectrum group. This is a group of people who believe first in individual liberty. This as the main priority is my understanding. I’m not a Libertarian, I think. There will be shades of grey and even darkness in any formation. It’s still new to me. Libertarians are made up of church going, pot legalizers, pro-military, anti-war, anti-establishment, constitutionalist, Main Street, 99% ers who are against corrupt banks controlling a corrupted government. Unfortunately, when it comes to Libertarians, too many think of the incredulous Radio show host Alex Jones, or of bible belt rednecks who drool over owning guns and talking about a constitution that they have never read but swear by like it’s a book of the bible. Alex Jones in particular does more harm than good. He mixes in bits of important under-reported news with heaps of hyperbolic nonsense and sounds insane as he jumps from subject to subject several times per sentence. Perhaps he does have good intentions, but he has spent too many years saturated in the subject and his own ego to convince a clear headed newcomer. In spite of the large radio audience I think Ron Paul should steer clear of AJ.

The way I see things has changed recently, and without Alex Jones. Overall, for the last 4 years, I have been amazed that the same people who think Obama is a crook think Bush was a hero. This by proxy has made me an automatic Obama supporter. Support for Bush at this point is the sign of a person who studies sports or pop culture too much rather than the reality of the world's current condition. The only weapons of mass destruction we will ever find are, and were, red white and blue. We in America are thousands of times more likely to get hit by accidental celebratory fire from a single shot into the starry New Year’s night sky from miles away than we are to ever get a scratch from a well marketed phantom terrorist. The more I learn about Link: President Obama, the more it seems his is as corrupt and basically the same “leader-puppet” as Bush in his day. Both are figure heads that actually have little to do with anything. KRS-1 explained it well by describing the president as a fast food manager, with the real government being the franchise owner. You’ll only ever get to field your complaints to the manager. You never see the real owner who may not even live in the same state.

Nowadays when asked about anything "Republican or Democrat" I tend to reply along the lines of, Checkers or Sonic? All four are of the same sugar and lard filled false dichotomy. Distractions in action marketed to make us feel good because we picked one over the other. Seriously, for real, what do people really assume that Romney would do different in the next four than what we have seen in the last four? The current political system is very unhealthy. We need to change out diet. We need health care reform, but Obama’s plan will contribute to the same corporate boondoggle that already is in place. The AMA = FDA. That intermingling of things Fed titled with things of profit power is what needs reform. A good place to start in learning about the current sickness of this private industry having negative influence(link): Dr. Burzynski Basically, the FDA at the behest of the private cancer industry attempted for more than 10 years to stop a medical practice that cures cancer because it wasn't a money maker for the established industry. There is a documentary by the same name. But that's only a starting place.

In the coming months of the new year, starting tomorrow, we will find ourselves standing in lines. Some of those lines and formations will be political in nature. My current inclination, with what I have to go on, is for Ron Paul as President. At this point I would encourage others to consider his message and voting for him when you find yourself standing in line for the voting booth.