Thwarted

Last night, after half-listening to a tv local news report on the dangers of saturated fat, I developed a hankering for a fast food burger. The McDonald's located three blocks from my house has a late-nite drive through, but whether it would be open at a quarter to midnight on a Sunday was iffy. Before the thought even occurred to me, my young uncle agreed to accompany me. This, I think, was in part because he is visiting for two weeks from Taiwan with a few of my great aunts and great uncle and probably wanted to get out of the house for a bit. But mostly, he's generous and shows his love by anticipating my comfort, doing all those little things without my having to ask.

As we approached McDonald's we saw that the lights were on—oh! oh! and there were people moving about in there. We cheered as we found the doors still unlocked (Yay for us!) and walked inside. But victory was short lived, as the cashier informed us that they had run out of beef. I thought he was just joking because it was so improbable. What kind of burger place runs out of beef? But he wasn't smiling (and soon neither was I) when he repeated: indeed, they've run out of beef but would be happy to serve us any of their chicken or potato products.