I ate lunch at Wendy’s today. Oh yeah, in case you were wondering – that photo was taken in 1944. It’s Dave Thomas, who would go on to found Wendy’s (I might have gotten some colorful and highly speculative feedback if I hadn’t cleared that up!). The one across the street from my day job, as I’ve just learned, actually sells a fish sandwich. Most of the Wendy’s I enter do not offer it, though I don’t know what the actual stats are on how many offer it and how many do not. I had to wait a while for my order, but I didn’t mind – it’s been years since I’ve had a Wendy’s fish sandwich, so a few more minutes were of little consequence. I got the impression that there was only one person back there who actually knew how to fry one, and they had to go back and get that person. I don’t think they sell very many and that’s too bad, because IMHO it is clearly superior to the McD’s or BK equivalent. I almost missed the fish option entirely, since the part of the menu board on which it was listed was almost entirely obscured by a stack of french fry containers. But I happened to see the word “fish” and happily pursued that option, especially since I don’t eat beef or chicken, which has the happy effect of tending to limit my forays into fast food.
There’s another reason I’ve found to stay away from fast food, and it’s directly linked to indulging my essential hedonism. It’s simply this – when I eat fast food all the time, my sense of taste gets a little dulled, probably from being so relentlessly inundated with sodium. But if I stay away from it for a while – oh baby! It tastes SO GOOD! Today was such a day. I know it seems counterintuitive, but my basic feeling right now is that it tasted so good, it makes me want to stay away from it for a few weeks now. I don’t know if it works this way for any of you, but that’s how it works on this set of taste buds!
