I need food fast!

Mark Prokop
Managing Editor

I hate my brain. My brain is the one that makes me hungry. My stomach is the location of the signal, but it's all my brain’s fault; specifically the unconscious part of it. My brain is evil. It makes me hungry at the worst times.

Like, for example, it makes me hungry after 1 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday. Those days are significant because the Taco Bell near my house is only open until one—they save the 2 a.m. closings for the “weekend” of Friday and Saturday.

I have three late-night, fast-food places within a two-minute drive of my house. The first is McDonald's, the second is Taco Bell, and the third is Wendy's.

So tonight, my evil subconscious brain decides to tell my stomach to tell my conscious brain it is hungry. I curse it and procrastinate until I have squandered away my precious Taco Bell time frame. In anger, I procrastinate more until my evil brain has had enough of my shenanigans.

My brain forces me to shamble like a zombie to the fridge. I pray to the Lord Jesus, in whom I don't believe, there are some tasty foodstuffs in my icebox.

But I am defeated, as there is nothing—wait! Tiramisu ice cream cake! I grab the box and pull it out, getting my hands sticky from the ice cream smeared all over the side. But there will be no ice cream cake for me, as the dreaded freezer burn has claimed this cake and it is but a shell of the delicious confection it once was.

I turn and look at the clock. 1:53! To the car! Wendy's, with its glorious 2 a.m. closing time, is still open.
I drive far faster than I should, pushing 50 miles per hour on a 35 mile per hour road. I am fortunate there aren't the customary police officers getting the easy tickets in their usual spots.

1:56. Wendy's is in sight. I have four minutes—no! My dreams of tasty hamburgers have been shattered, as the sign has been shut off! The slackers who work there apparently wanted to go home four minutes earlier. Curse them and their minimum wages!

I still need this tasty meat. My stomach is howling, furious at this turn of events. I look back. There is but one option: the reprehensible bastion of evil that is McDonald's—the only fast food place near me that is open 24 hours.

However, I swore an oath to never buy anything from this malevolent force because years ago they produced a series of commercials advertising their “Chicken Selects” that featured people defending their chicken against imaginary chicken-stealers.

But I needed some cow. So I go up to the box I yell at to request my food, and tell them I want two hamburgers.

“We don't have that on the menu,” the disembodied voice tells me.

What? I'm looking at it. Hamburger. 99 cents. This person is insane! They must be one of the people from the “Chicken Selects” commercials, living in the alternate reality where people want to steal crappy chicken and McDonald's doesn't serve hamburgers. It says McDonald's Hamburgers on the giant sign.

My brain freezes. The good side looks at the evil side and says, “It's dark in here.”

“Wait, what? You don't have hamburgers?” I say, hoping my confusion will snap her out of her alternate reality.

“No sir,” Alternate Universe Girl tells me.

“Forget it then,” I grumble, expressing my dissatisfaction to someone who is incapable of caring any less.

My brain tells itself they must have run out of hamburgers, which makes me question why they bother to claim they are open 24 hours.