The Kavanaugh Season

by Max S. Gordon

For an audio version of this essay, please click here:

1

America burns tonight, a fire spreads. Things burn easily these days, this is the Kavanaugh season.

I went to McDonald’s because I wanted some french fries. I eat all the time. I can’t stop eating. I don’t really taste food these days anyway. I just press it to my mouth and swallow. I hate McDonald’s. I love McDonald’s. I’m eight years old, I’m forty-eight years old. The fries are exactly the same. McDonald’s!

Today, however, the fries taste like shit; the trick to McDonald’s is that you have to get the fries when they come right out of the deep fryer, while they are still hot. And you have to makes sure you get enough of them — if you shake the box, sometimes they all fall to the bottom and you can see that they didn’t give you enough. There is never enough. Sometimes they are in such a hurry, the fry-makers, they don’t fill the cartons to the top. There are so many of us in line and the manager is watching; it’s rush hour, every hour is rush hour. Most customers don’t even look inside the bag, they just take whatever they are given and walk away. Not me. I know that when they are good, McDonald’s fries can be amazing. But they have to be fresh. I put salt on my fries, more salt, even more salt, I can’t get enough salt, I can’t get enough fries, I sit in the car, pushing fries into my mouth, I don’t really taste the food anymore. There’s never enough food, there’s never enough salt! I’m eating all the time these days, during the Kavanaugh season, why don’t I ever feel full?

These fries really taste like shit. They’re cold, which is the absolute worst thing a french fry can be. I bought them from a McDonald’s up the road, but instead of going all the way back there, I drive to the next McDonald’s, half a mile away. I tell the employee behind the counter, “These fries were cold. I bought them up the street.” She gives me a look, I give her a look. She hesitates. She dumps two small fries that have been sitting under the heating lamp to make one large fry. But I’m a french-fry connoisseur, I know it doesn’t work like that.

“I don’t want those,” I tell her. “They’ve been sitting under the lamp. I’d like some fresh fries, please.”