THEORY CORNER FOR MEN: " THE GIRLS OF CARL'S JR."

I think Playboy already did a "Girls of McDonald's" spread. Bah! Let them have McDonald's! Everybody knows the real babes hang out at Carl's Junior!


I grant you, McDonald's (above) has the best fries.

But Carl's gets the best people (above). More artsy types hang out at Carl's than any other fast food chain, at least in my area.

Here's (above) one of Carl's artsy customers relaxing at home. Orange dress, orange throw pillows, and orange walls...that takes a certain boldness...

...a boldness no doubt inspired by the orange food at Carl's.

I admit that all those burgers can put on the pounds (above) if you're not careful.

Interestingly, some people manage to stay slim no matter how much they eat. I used to be one of them.

Here's (above) another slim customer. Holy Mackerel! This girl is perfectly dressed for the Royal Order of the Muskrat Ladies Auxiliary. Theory Corner women, take note!

Carl's does seem to get a lot of worldly women (above). The young innocents seem to prefer Denny's.

The restaurant also gets a certain number of people who are utensil-challenged.

Some women bring their evil boyfriends (above).

Some women (above) bring their cell phones, which is much worse. I've learned from eavesdropping on loud cell phone calls that lots of Carl's women complain to other women about their controlling mothers.

P.S. Thanks to John for the nifty title!

FASHIONS IN DROWNING

Apparently drowning is subject to fashion just like everything else. According to a book I picked up recently, drowning was usually described as horrific and painful by survivors before the Romantic era, and as painless, even pleasant, by later generations.

During the hippie era it wasn't uncommon for survivors to claim immense tranquility as their lungs filled with water, and deep resentment against the rescuers who fished them out. You'd read comments like, "The only pain I felt was when air was rudely forced back into my lungs."

Since we have contradictory accounts, I feel free to come to my own conclusion, which is that it's horrifying. Drowning is oxygen deprivation, something hanged men re-act to by kicking wildly...surely a sign that they're not enjoying themselves.

Physical reaction to lots of things follow fashion. In the 50s few people were actually made sick by smoke in restaurants. A lot of sensitive types who fainted when smokers lit up 40 feet away in the 80s used to pay big bucks to get into smoke-filled clubs in the 50s. Remember the Beat cafe in "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom?" Clubs like that were considered cool. Beatniks smoked like bandits.

I don't think the tolerance of the human lung changed, just people's perception of what their lungs can tolerate.

BTW, I'm not pushing smoking here. I don't smoke and never have.

A hundred years ago women were diagnosed as having hysteria much more frequently than now. Sure, social prejudice accounted for some of that, but it's also likely that women of that time really were more emotional in public about some things. They collapsed from bad news, wailed uncontrollably at the death of loved ones, got physically sick when certain things were discussed, and fainted more frequently. I don't think human physiology has changed since then, just people's perception of how their bodies are supposed to react to things.

You see this in the way some people react to fast food these days. When MacDonald's first put up franchises, long lines and positive comments were universal. Almost everybody in those days thought of MacDonald's as something you did for fun, like going to the Dairy Queen for ice cream. That changed during the hippie era when MacDonald's and Coke were recast as symbols of "The Man."

Once MacDonalds was perceived differently, people's stomachs magically changed too. The same burger they relished a short time before was now thought to be utterly impossible to digest. In the "Supersize" film above you can actually see the filmmaker throwing up from eating a big Mac and a large fries. Was he faking? Probably not.

It's funny because he looks so much like the kind of wholesome, Jimmy Olsen kind of guy who would have taken root at MacDonald's only one generation before.

Am I saying that fast food is equal in taste or digestibility to food that costs 4X more in a classier place? No, of course not. I'm just noting that human physiology has a way of serving up whatever kind of physical reaction our mind expects of it.

This is a bit off topic, but all that talk about drowning makes me want to share this video I stumbled on. It shows what the filmmaker saw in Drake's Passage, beneath South America. This isn't even a particularly rough sea, yet the threat of drowning is ever present. I recommend just the first minute and a half of the film.

I TAKE MY SNOOTY FRIEND TO GET SOME FAST FOOD

I don't know why so many people hate fast food restaurants. I understand why they got a bad reputation early on when they were crowded and noisy with plastic seats, but that was then and this is now. My local Carl Jr.'s is quiet and comfortable and the food isn't bad if you know what to order. Anyway, yesterday I finally convinced my food snob friend Mike to try it.

I guess I picked the wrong day because the restaurant was full of mentally challenged people with carts filled with teddy bears and "Lion King' memorabelia. There must have been a convention nearby. They were all shouting incoherently and of course they all seemed to gravitate to Mike.

I forgot that using a door is a learned skill. A man who hadn't learned it yet came to the door, saw his friends inside, but couldn't get in because a slab (the door) was in the way. After making a few tentative little pushes he opened the door about 20% of the way, then tried to squeeze in through the narrow opening. The door, which had a normal amount of spring tension, gently began to close on him, pinning him there by the shoulders. The man painstakingly turned sideways to get more room but the door closed on him in that position too, forcing him to wheedle through sideways, like a crab. I'm embarrassed to say that I was so suprised by what I was seeing that I forgot to offer to help. Besides I was distracted by a little kid who was trying to hit Mike on the head with a DVD box.

I also forgot that using a cup is a learned skill. A man settled into a booth with a cup of coffee and looked wistfully out the window. Nothing wrong with that, just a citizen enjoying a cup of coffee. "Ah!" you could almost hear him thinking, "Life is good!" He took a sip then went to take another sip and was shocked to discover that the cup was empty. He looked at the kitchen angrily then got up and filled it again. Back in the booth he took another long, relaxed sip. "Aaaaah!", you could hear him think, "That's good!" But wait a minute! When he went to take a another sip nothing was there! What kind of restaurant are they running here? Once again he angrily looked at the kitchen then went up and got more coffee. This went on and on, with him looking suprised that he had nothing in his cup then filling it with only one sip's worth of coffee. Once again I didn't offer to help because the kid was back hitting Mike with the DVD box again.

I should add that Mike was sitting close to the aisle. Every time the coffee man passed he would fart next to Mike's head. And when I say "passed," I mean passed in both directions. Mike would get a fart in his face on the guy's way up to the counter and a fart in the face on the guy's way back.


I suggested to Mike that we slide farther in on our seats so we could get away from the aisle but when we did that the woman in the booth behind us cast a murderous stare at Mike, probably thinking that he was the father who abused her and now deserved to be stabbed. Regretfully we slid back to the aisle where Mike was promptly farted on.

So that was my lunch with food snob Mike. I guess we won't be eating at Carl's again any time soon.