Piece by Sam Garrison

Gag Order

Julie ate her French fries without ketchup and wondered why she never asked for those little travel packets. She didn’t like to inconvenience the drive-through girl, but isn’t that her job? To give driver’s ketchup packets while they’re on the go? No, their job is to man the drive through and take orders. Take orders—for ketchup. Then why did it feel so whiny to just ask? Julie had worked in fast food, she knew ketchup packets were the least of a drive-through operators worries. But, Julie remembered, sometimes ketchup packets were just another stupid demand to make the drive-through girl feel like complete dirt. Or even less. She didn’t think of herself as degrading the girl behind the window, but sometimes taking people’s every demand for only minimum wage was more demeaning than walking naked into a crowd of horny teen-age boys. Granted, her mouth was really dry, and ketchup usually helped. The fries were tasteless, but she didn’t expect more. Either way, she was starting to fret, reliving the brief intercourse with the drive-through girl, making sure everything she said was courteous, friendly, and uplifting. She did ask for the straw after dropping her quarter—what if she sounded too frazzled? Panicking as she bit into one of her dry fries, Julie gasped, then choked. Coughing and continuing to panic, she couldn’t reach her drink or think to pull to the side of the road. The last thing Julie saw before her coma was a set of headlights from a Ford F-150 coming in the opposite direction.