#2 my degree in philosophy has paid off

I'm at McDonald's. My hamburger is overcooked and my coffee tastes like unflavoured tea. I don't care about the tea; I'm more concerned over the hamburger. How can processed beef patties be overcooked? I ponder this while the manager, a tall 27 year-old male with a buzzcut, complains to his inferiors that Chelsey wasn't on MySpace last night. Across the room sits a man with ragged clothes chewing on a McGriddle. He looks at a kid with a Happy Meal longingly, as if a die-cast steel toy would make his life infinitely better. He then looks down at his artificial foodstuffs and sighs. I know it doesn't matter, but I refrained from putting any ketchup on my fries as a sign of sympathy. Some brat is blasting his iPod as loud as possible, and I can't help but notice that he's listening to the god-damn Smiths. I shed a tear as I walked out of the quasi-restaurant; not for the kid or the homeless chap, but for the cute cashier that winked at me. This McDonald's is thirty minutes away from my apartment. Our love was never meant to be.