Some questions demand an answer. In this category, I’d include the queries ‘What time is it?’, ‘Who are you?’ and, of course, ‘Do you know the way to San Jose?’. Then there are other questions we end up spending our whole lives trying to answer. ‘Why are we here?’, ‘Does my existence in an infinite universe really matter?’ and ‘Exactly when did Shane Warne start looking like a police identikit picture?’. But there is a third category. These are questions that demand not so much an answer as another question. Or, if not a further inquiry, then the kind of silence that only deep, deep space can rival. Into that category, I would put the following: Would you like that in a meal?
Some questions demand an answer. In this category, I’d include the queries ‘What time is it?’, ‘Who are you?’ and, of course, ‘Do you know the way to San Jose?’. Then there are other questions we end up spending our whole lives trying to answer. ‘Why are we here?’, ‘Does my existence in an infinite universe really matter?’ and ‘Exactly when did Shane Warne start looking like a police identikit picture?’. But there is a third category. These are questions that demand not so much an answer as another question. Or, if not a further inquiry, then the kind of silence that only deep, deep space can rival. Into that category, I would put the following: Would you like that in a meal?
I had just placed an order at a fast food restaurant. Specifically, I had requested a burger, chips and an orange juice. Having repeated my order into a microphone, the young person pushed away his ample fringe and through a mouthful of braces that would undoubtedly prevent him from entering most of the county’s airports, asked me a question that stopped me dead in my tracks. Would you like that in a meal? To be brutally honest, when ordering the burger, the chips and, indeed, the drink, I had done so in the full belief that these items would almost certainly constitute a meal.
This inclination was only strengthened by the fact that I had placed the order at something quite brazenly calling itself a restaurant rather than, say, a laundromat. Had I asked for a burger, chips and a drink at the hairdressers or written it down on a withdrawal slip before handing it to bank teller number three, they would be well within their rights to ask this question. But surely such enquiries are unnecessary at a restaurant? I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I’ve always imagined that meals are pretty much the entire point of restaurants. I’m yet to discover an eatery that both serves food and prepares your tax return, even though that would be awesome. It’s little wonder that I was so confused.
As I stood, slack of jaw, a very long and (quite probably) very hungry queue of people formed behind me. No doubt, the people had made the same rookie mistake I had and were lining up in the genuine belief that they were about to order a meal rather than be confronted with one of the greatest existential challenges of this age or any other. The young man standing opposite, whose jaw was even slacker than mine and wore a name badge that said ‘Algernon’, let his mouth hang open like the eighteenth hole. Between us, we looked like a pair of sideshow alley clowns.
Part of the reason for my confusion has to be that I’m ignorant of the other available options. What happens if I decide not to have them in a meal? Will the burger no longer be a burger? And if meat, lettuce, cheese and tomato interspersed between two halves of a bun is not a burger then – in the name of all that is holy – what is it? Because if a burger is not a burger, then the Hamburglar would have to be the most deeply misunderstood and wrongly persecuted individual in living memory. That’s to say nothing of the drink and chips.
Perhaps I should have been more confident. When asked whether I would like my hamburger, chips and drink in a meal, I should have said ‘no’ in a loud and commanding voice, before adding, ‘I’d like them in a poem. Preferably a haiku but, if push comes to shove, a limerick will suffice.’ Had Algernon’s face not already been an emotional black hole, this would surely have tipped it into a sentimental abyss.
I should have asked for my order in a bouquet. Or maybe a Ford Focus. Or a pair of slimming trousers. Then again, perhaps I’d misunderstood the question. It could easily be that poor old Algernon was not asking me whether I wanted my order ‘in a meal’ but ‘inner meal’, referring to some higher state of Zen-like spiritual contentment. The answer to that inquiry would naturally be ‘but of course!’ If sold as an ‘inner meal’, though, they should probably supply incense and scented candles also, to give you the greatest chance of ascending to a higher plane of spiritual existence whilst seated in the food court.
But in the fast food game, there is little time to contemplate the meaning of your life, much less whether you really want your order to be supplied to you ‘in a meal’ or, for that matter, as an ‘inner meal’. People are hungry and impatient. And Algernon’s face which had previously been so perfectly immobile as to resemble a ventriloquist’s dummy after the owner went home for the evening, was at risk of moving. There was really nothing for it other than to surrender. ‘Yes, I suppose so’, I answered. Moments later, my food arrived. Not in a bouquet, a poem or a Ford Focus. Not even in a pair of pants. Instead, my food arrived in a brown paper bag with a couple of serviettes and a plastic straw tossed inside. Had Algernon asked me if I wanted my food in a paper bag rather than a meal, I’d have answered him instantly. Seated in the food court, I took a long sip of my orange juice, and thought about life, hamburgers and the universe. As you do.