Would you like frys with that?

I maintain that the French fry container is an engineering masterpiece.  Think about it; the moment you drive away from the drive-through window, what's the first thing you do?  You reach for a fry or three.  Sometimes a handfull, just to maximize the payload and reduce the extra travel time from bag to mouth.  If the frys were in any way encapsulated within the container, it would seriously impede the process.

I've also come to the conclusion that this act is not voluntary.  It's a reflex reaction that human beings have when in close proximity to a container of French frys.  But, you may ask, what if you actually want to eat some of your frys WITH your meal?  At the current rate of consumption, if your destination is any farther than five miles from the drive-through from where you picked up your vittles, there's only a 1 in 4,549 chance that you will make it there with any frys left over.

(I have the math that helped me come to those odds.  I'll post it at a later date.)

This dilemma is resolved with the engineering genius of the fry container.  The large, open-ended orifice both allows for on-the-spot consumption, but it also allows for release of a portion of your frys into the bag.  The released frys will find their way to the bottom of the bag and out of reach from the consumer, thus preserving an amount of frys for later consumption, presumably with your meal.  This act is facilitated when the restaurateur loads the fry container orifice down.  In a typical scenario, approximately half of the frys escape the container confines before either the consumer re-orients the frys in the bag, or a napkin plugs the orifice, thus preventing further fry egress.

FYI, Carls Jr. has a burger called The Big Carl.  It's supposed to be a competition to the McDonald's Big Mac (though since I'm not too keen on McDonalds, its difficult to compare).  I thought that the 'Big' in the title would be a marketing ploy.  As it turns out, the burgers are actually quite large.  Thought you should know.

Headline: Even MORE Men are Pigs

Last night my wife, brother-in-law and I went to The Tulsa Rib Co. for some fall-off-the-bone ribs and a pitcher of Sam Adams.  Although I wouldn't classify it as the happiest day of my life, it ranks up there somewhere in the top 30.  I ate like a pig.

The ribs were pork.  Does that make me a cannibal?

I guess I can live with that.

Headline: Men are Pigs

Earlier today I was scouring Facebook for a picture of a person who will soon be receiving the business end of a lawsuit.  In my searches, I came across a fanpage for a woman named Debrahlee Lorenzana.  For those who may not be familiar with her, perhaps the following article will help.  I'll wait here while you read:

READ ME, BUT PLEASE COME BACK

Glad to have you back.

I actually kind of hate myself for sending you to that link, because that article represents one of my bigger pet peeves: Taking a complex legal issue and reducing it to a 20-point Helvetica headline.

It's not that I have a problem with headlines.  Or with Helvetica for that matter.  It's that over 2000 people have probably formulated their opinion about this complex issue based on the 11-word headline and a rather one-sided article.

I'm sure the reporter who wrote the story tried to get as much information as he could from Citibank for the story, and I sympathize for him.  Huge corporations are notoriously silent when it comes to commenting on legal issues.  Unfortunately, the Internet age has reduced everyone's attention span to about 14 seconds and modern news media has to cater to that in order to make any money.

Here's the problem.  Even if people read the entire article (which I'm pretty sure most of those 'fans' on the page have not), there's still not enough information in that article to make an informed decision.  People will simply jump straight to the conclusion that the headline draws them to...that a woman was fired for being too hot.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment.

Citibank management asks Ms. Lorenzana not to wear certain articles of clothing that highlight certain...features...of her physique.  She believes this is inappropriate because other women are wearing similar styles of clothing.  I don't know what Ms. Lorenzana was wearing to the office, but the problem is, you can take clothes that look conservative and appropriate on one person, but put the same clothes on another and it becomes inappropriate.  What would be tasteful on Meg Ryan would make Sofía Vergara look as naughty as Britney Spears in a schoolgirl outfit.

The article also mentions that supervisors brought to Ms. Lorenzana's attention that her outfits were "too distracting" to her male colleagues and supervisors.  Say what you want about a woman's outfit, but if several men are complaining that it's distracting, then you know it's distracting.  Now, obviously I don't know about all the conversations that took place between management and Ms. Lorenzana, but is it beyond the realm of possibility that Ms. Lorenzana may have had an 'I can wear what I want' attitude which management got sick of dealing with?

Finally, she requested a department transfer, but (I'm ripping this straight from the article)

"matters didn't improve at the next branch, where she was chided for failing to recruit new customers. She was axed in August."

You know, if only management would let her wear what she wanted, she could have brought her numbers up.

Now, I could be completely wrong and Ms. Lorenzana could be completely justified in her action.  And I did say I was playing devil's advocate.  But you see, that's the problem.  There isn't enough information to formulate an informed opinion.  Every argument I brought up is purely from conjecture, but they are possible arguments.  Yet because of a headline people are lending this woman their support.

This over-simplification of legal issues in headline news is exemplified by the infamous McDonald's Hot Coffee case.  Problem is, the case that had become the rallying cry for tort reform actually was very meritorious, though most people formulated their opinion simply by reading the headline and thinking "Boy, our legal system is messed up".

(Note:  Our legal system IS messed up, but this is not the case to cite as an argument.)

My point is, don't let the media formulate an opinion for you.  Especially if that opinion is based heavily on a one-sided argument.  If something seems too sensational to believe, it probably is.  Unfortunately we may never know the outcome of this issue, but I'm certain, in a very Andy Warhol sort of way, that Ms. Lorenzana will find a new career path out of this.