Originally Published in the Dallas Morning News

My wife and I noticed a very long line of cars circled around a new fast food joint on the way home the other day. “I wonder what the big deal is?” she asked. Dinnertime rolled around and I decided to check it out.

What was this fantastic new auto dining experience? Well, I would just have to wait and see. And wait. And wait some more.

When I arrived, the line was ridiculous. It wound its way through the parking lot and then around the block. It took eight minutes for the car in front of me to move one space. The next move took twelve minutes.

Oh well, I thought, I could stick it out. In our neighborhood, no one talks to anyone or goes outside, and I wanted to get out and see some other humans. If you want to be around people in suburbia, you have to get in your car.

As I got closer, I noticed there were whole families, even people on dates excitedly entering and exiting the brightly lit building. A policeman was directing traffic. It was a party atmosphere. The place felt special in a temporary kind of way.

An hour went by. If my wife were there she would have said “this is stupid.” True, but I was determined to sit through it with everyone else. What makes something that should be humiliating a compelling experience instead, I asked myself.

An hour and a half went by. I could have walked to and from a nearby restaurant, read the paper and taken a nap in that amount of time. But then again there are no such places within walking distance in my suburb, which is why we were all in our cars in the first place.

The waiting became absurd, but still I insisted on completing the ritual. Instead of being in a pleasant environment with friends, I was alone in my car, sucking on exhaust from the car in front of me. In our auto based culture this is about as communal as we get.

By the time I finally got the menu board two hours had passed. I was so demoralized and hungry I would have ordered dog poo sandwiches. Luckily these were not on the menu.

What was on the menu was the same stuff at every other fast food restaurant. Cheap, highly processed, mechanized assembly line sort-of food in bags that matched the building, the uniforms, and everything else.

A photo of a bored looking young man with a large, perfectly circular hole where his midsection should be stared back at me. It was supposed to denote having an empty stomach, but after subjecting myself to this experience I couldn’t help feeling empty in an entirely different way.

The source of the excitement? The burgers were small and square.

Wow. That was it?

The burger bag said “made special for you.” I sure didn’t feel that way. I felt shallow, used, like I was lost and needed to find myself again.

And I couldn’t help but think that the hunger everyone had was not for fast food, but for novelty, a new consumer experience. Something to inject life into the blandness of the commercial suburban landscape.

In our desperation it seems we’ll do anything to satisfy our desire for the new. Consumer experiences always fail not long after the purchase is complete because the meaning they hold is designed to be transient.

Like the cheapest fast food, even the most expensive cars and homes leave you wanting, hungry. Like the rush you get after a soft drink and fries, the sensation abates and the sense of fullness quickly passes.

And then we start over. We wait with anticipation for the next bright, flashy, salty thing to lure and distract us. And we can’t wait to get in line.