If you were around in the ’90s, you probably saw Demolition Man. It starred Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock and depicted a future in which – among other things – the most extravagant luxury was an evening out at Taco Bell.

Well, we experienced our own version of this extravagant luxury the other night. At Burger King.

It was late, we were tired and so – for the first time in years – we rolled up to the order window at a fast food drive-through. We ordered two “Whoppers” with (allegedly) cheese. I place the name of this hamburger in air fingers quotes because if it is a “Whopper,” then my understanding of this word requires correction. What came through the drive-through window was a bag containing two very modest-looking hamburgers; hardly “Whoppers.” The patty was a sad-looking disc maybe a fourth-of-an-inch thick, salted like beef jerky and almost as leathery. There was a piece of flaccid lettuce, a tasteless tomato and two little pickle slices about the size of a penny. The buns were the biggest component of the “Whopper.”

Maybe the word refers to the price.

This would make more sense. Those two “Whoppers” cost $15. No fries. No drinks. Fifteen bucks for two sad-looking “Whoppers” that were, by my reckoning, about the same size – the patties, for sure – as you used to get when you ordered a kid’s-size cheeseburger and paid maybe a buck for it.

We marveled. In part, because we are both old enough to remember when you could have fed four people at Burger King for fifteen bucks. This Before Time was about six years ago – before “COVID” set in motion the acceleration of the enserfment we’re all experiencing now every time we go to buy anything.

A downsized Snickers bar, for instance. I picked one up at the (cough) Dollar Store, which really ought to be renamed the Five Dollar Store in the interest of honesty – because there is very little you can buy for a dollar at this store. A downsized Snickers bar goes for about $2.50 now. Buying one is not far from being an evening out at Taco Bell – or soon will be.

It wears one down, like accelerated aging. It imparts a kind of helpless bleakness to life because what are we supposed to do about it?

Obviously, you do not have to spend fifteen bucks on a evening out at Taco Bell. Or $2.50 on a Snickers bar. Such things are not just bad for your finances, they are bad for you, period. They are luxurious extravagances easily skipped, without feeling as if you’ve lost something good that you perhaps formerly regarded as a kind of eternal given. If you can remember the Before “COVID” time, you probably remember not giving much if any thought to buying what actually used to be a Whopper – because you cold buy one for about what it costs to buy a downsized Snickers bar today. Yes, really. In 2005, a Whopper cost $2.17 so you could have bought six for the cost of two, today – and still had a couple bucks left for a side of fries. Fast food was cheap. And – once upon a time – it was actually not bad. It tasted good, at any rate – and it wasn’t nearly as bad for you. The fries at McDonald’s used to be fried in beef tallow – which is much better for your arteries than the pressed seed oils used today.

The Whopper actually was that, too. One was more than enough to fill your belly. Today, the “Whopper’s” buns try to make up for that, filling your belly with GMO wheat, which works because it bloats.

You depart the drive-through feeling broke and sick.

The difficult-to-fathom thing is that the drive-through lines are almost always long. People line up for this goy slop – and pay top dollar for it, too. They accept this as normal. This enshitification of things. Perhaps it is just what you have to do when that’s just how it is. At the zoo, you see this defeating acceptance of the way things are in the listlessness of the big cats, confined to small cages. Sometimes, they pace in circles, haunted, perhaps, by ancient memories of open spaces. Occasionally, an ape will shit in his hand and throw it at the children laughing at him through the bars.

Maybe he’d be more content if they let him out once in awhile . . .perhaps for for an evening at Taco Bell.

. . .

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