99 cent Value Menu

I've shopped enough in my life to know that good quality things do not have to cost an arm and a leg. Take places like T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. You can find great designer items at a great bargain price. I know this because I am, in fact, a registered Maxxinista. Anyway, translate that into the food world and you've got a whole different situation. Really. How high quality can a $.99 burrito from Taco Bell be? It can't! Just take into consideration that big businesses "cannot", or more appropriately, will not sell something without making a profit, and a fairly large one at that. Is it a convenience that you can not get out of your car and drive up to a window and pay roughly $1 to get something that for most people can constitute a meal? Yes.  Do I do it? Heck yes! But after last night's vom fest (on my husband's part, I was fine), I think my husband is cured. All of these bred-by-laziness conveniences that the "greatest nation in the world" has created, are completely new to him, namely the fast food drive-thru.

Anecdote: The town we lived in in Italy up until year before last was one of the few blessed by the presence of the almighty McDonald's. Not only were they fortunate enough to have the golden arches, but they also had a McDrive. I was shocked. I have spent a considerable amount of time in Italy, and in different areas, but this was the first drive-thru I had ever seen. As foreign as the idea of beer and espresso at a McDonald's was for me, so was the idea of the drive-thru for the natives. For months after they opened it, they would have signs on the ordering intercom to pull forward to the window on the other side. This was not because anything was broken, but because the people had no idea how it worked. I actually witnessed a person in front of me one day, pull up to the window, get out of his car and complete his order standing at the window. Simply hysterical. Anecdote done.

While I know how disgusting fast food is, until someone finds me a healthy, acceptable alternative to the golden starch and fat of the french fry, I'm pretty sure I'll just be fat for the rest of my life.