i may be skinny, but i am scrappy!

"if i didn't order a big mac,

then don't make me smell it."

there are two things that you should know about knoxville:

first of all, we apparently have horrible air quality here. someone tried to explain it to me once. it seems that all of the polluted air from the cities around us travels over the mountains and settles in the valley that is knox county. in fact, there are days that the meteorologists have suggested that people stay indoors due to the content of our air. scary, huh?

secondly, there is a coffee factory that is close to where i work. on any given day, i can walk outside and smell the scent of coffee in the air. it does, however, smell a little more like burnt waffles than coffee in my opinion. others may disagree, but "crispy eggos" is the description my olfactory glands send to my brain. at first the smell used to catch my attention, but i have become accustomed to it. now i am hardly phased by the scent change.


okay. now that i have properly set up my story, i will continue on to the good stuff.

yesterday was wednesday, and wednesdays are always busy. no matter what week or month it is, you can bet that if it is a wednesday, i am going to be running around like a crazy person. yesterday was no different. i had lots to do and not nearly enough time. at about 3:30 pm i exited my office and began making my way through the wet grass to my car.

suddenly i paused.

looking up into the sky, i noticed that something was different. what was it? my eyes could not see any changes. my ears strained to hear any strange noised, but came up empty-handed. then, like a clever private investigator (go emerson cod!), my nose discovered the culprit. behold, lingering in the winter air was a potent stench that did not fall under my brain's registered knoxville scents; however, it was ripe with familiarity. it took me about 30 seconds to put my finger on it, and when i did i realized that the aroma was that of mcdonald's.

out of all of the things that i could possibly choose to smell, i would most definitely not choose mcdonald's. in my opinion it is a restaurant that serves sub-foods. unless i were dying of starvation, i would not "choose" to eat there on any given day. nevertheless, there i was standing in the toxic december air. a prisoner in my own community, being forced to breathe happy meal oxygen. yuck!

realizing that i could not just wish it away, i continued on to my car and proceeded to drive home. to my astonishment when i exited my car i was once again greeted by a fresh batch of burger air. my temperature was rising, but i knew there were bigger fish to fry. like the wednesday night class that i had to teach in a few hours. i decided to put the experience out of my mind and move ahead into the house. i did not think about it again for the rest of the night.

then came morning.

today i cannot help but find myself curious about the origin of the smell. it is almost as if the city of knoxville was blanketed with a thick coat of fast food perfume. perhaps it was a marketing strategy by mcdonald's to gain more customers in a time of economic crisis. your guess is as good as mine. all i know is that i will be glad if it never happens again. i'll take burnt breakfast food over greasy fries any day.

as for ronald (as in "mcdonald"): you can take your sorry dollar menu self out of here and go pollute another town. i will fight you if i must. i do not like clowns, but you do not scare me. i may be skinny, but i am scrappy!