Eating with 'The Man'

Our weekend consisted of some driving... to Moncton NB and back for a bachelorette party. Yep, one of my best friends is getting married so some jello shooters were had, rock band was played and some dancin' shoes were donned. Although the club was a bit traumatizing for someone who's been MIA for about four years, and none of us really fit in with the dress code (ahem, my purple skirt in the banner was as short as I was going) it was a blast. Andrew got to visit with friends and I got to break-in my dancing legs.

On our drive home Andrew and I stopped in Truro for a mop sponge replacement (don't want to buy a brand new mop when a new sponge will do just fine) and some food. The worse part of traveling is the unavoidable stops at fast food places.

We rarely eat fast food, which was a huge change for Andrew who was an avid Wendy's fan. After a few years with month-long Wendy's droughts he started to feel nauseous and disgusting during our infrequent 'treats' and announced that his 'most favourite food has been ruined FOREVER'. (cue accusatory look...).

I just can't wrap my head around eating random crappy fake meat, supporting the industry that sells crap food to children (and myself) and is all that is terribly wrong with our perspective on food.

While we sat there, hypocritically eating our 'chicken' strips and two 'burgers' plus salt-rockets and liquid corn we glanced across the street.

On this busy street just off the highway, on our right was a few gas stations, to our left were strip malls, Pizza Delights and Canadian Tires and across the street, nestled between strip malls was an old, white wooden shuttered two storey house. 

Unlike the front 'yard' à la Wendy's which was obviously plopped down from weed to weird non-native willow-type tree via corporate design, this house actually had two huge local trees powerful and green, local flowers and some grass. All of a sudden, the cheap cookie cutter attempt at 'green space' wilted and looked like some sad imitation theme park garden. I could practically hear the designers outline each bush, flower and tree order to exactly the same specifications to assure that all Wendy's across the country looked exactly the same.

All the while this white, slightly weathered and beaten old house stood majestically surrounded by something much more real.


On the front porch sat an old man, white hair, cynical expression, on his old porch rocking chair. Quietly staring at the traffic whizzing by, at the people going in and out of Wendy's. I wondered what he was thinking. Had he been the last one holding out? What did his neighbourhood used to look like, before the strip malls, gas stations and fast food joints? Was this his final 'Eff you Man'.


I felt embarrassed to be caught eating with 'The Man'. 


article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com