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The Official Burger King Theme Song

Hold the pickels, hold the lettuce.
Special orders don't upset us.
All we ask is that you let us serve it your way!
Have it your way
Have it your way
Have it your way at Burger King!

"You Have it Your Way" ("I Want it That Way" rewritten for Burger King)
This song was performed at the end of the Backstreet Boys "For The Fans" video tape.

Tell me why
Why can't you hold the pickels?
Tell me why
Why can't we have a slab of cheese?
Tell us why
I love it when I hear you say
You have it your way

Be a human anti-depressant
By: Susan Passi-Klaus

My head hurts, I couldn't sleep the night through, the laudnry is piled high, I have nothing ironed to wear to work and I haven't a clue what to write about.

Add to the list, the mone's spent for the rest of the month, I'm late getting cards out for July birthdays, Japanese Beetles have torturned my roses and school hasn't yet started for my summered-out daughter -- much to her daughtered-oud mother's regret.

I'm feeling insecure, taken for granted, imposed upon, envious, left out, picked on and just plain pouty. Poor me.

So this morning, before I sat down to compose this column, I went for a drive hoping to be inspired by an "ah-ha" or two along the way.

I had my attitude adjusted when I drove through Burger King on my morning mission to get a king-size Diet Coke. The smiling face that greets me almost every trip was there to offer the first "good morning" of my day. Mercedese Mills has a knack for making me think she's really happy to see me. When she leaned a bit further out the window than usual to ask me how I was, I didn't dare tell her. Nobody likes a whiner. I did, however, mention that I should probably go back to bed.

"Amen," she said. "I know what you mean, but we all gotta keep on keepin' on." Did I mention that Mercedese is a single mother who supports her seven children on her Burger King salary?

With a wink, she handed me a straw and said, "Now, sweetheart, you go have yourself a good day."

My Diet Coke costs 15 cents more at that fast food restaurant than at the one just around the corner, but I also get kindness delivered through the window. When she calls me "sweetheart," I feel like I've gotten a hug from my mom on the way out the door to school.

On this same morning I heard on the radio about a suicidal woman encouraged to jump from a bridge by rush hour drivers annoyed at the traffic delay she was causing. She jumped. C'mon people, what have we become?

We've got office rage, road rage, and sports rage. There's domestic violence, school violence, and random violence. We fight for parking spaces and road lanes. We fight about money, territory, power, possessions.

We're impatient with the salesclerk, the waiter, the MARTA man, the teacher, the co-worker, the ticket taker, the car in front of us, the kid who did better than our kid and the referee who made the controversial call.

Heck, I'm angry too. I'm angry that I'm getting older and not necessarily better, that I don't have the money to do the things I should be able to do, that I'm still fat and neurotic after all these years.

I'm angry my daughter's room is always a mess, that my husband doesn't tackle the things on his "honey-do" list faster, that my mother and father indulge my brother and his kids more than they do me and mine.

Much of my anger is, of course, irrational. I'm mad at the garden because of the weeds growing there, at the lawn because it doesn't stay mowed and at our house because it won't stay clean. I'm mad at the dog because he gets dirty when he digs for moles and at the cat becaus she coughs up hairballs on my living room rug.

What really makes me angry is that I'm angrier about more things than I am happy about.

Today my Diet Coke angel reached into the hole I had dug for myself. She broke a negative chain of why-me-poor-me's with a sentence or two of verbal TLC. She put me bakc on track looking for the blessings in my lunders and for the good in others. Nothing calms anger quite like gratitude.

We all have the same opportunity to turn someone's day around -- to give a compliment, offer a hug, validate a feeling. No matter how ordinary the encounter, how distant the relationship or insignificant the gesture we all play a part in healing each other. We can each be a human anti-depressant.

Some angry, lonely, depressed, frightened body out there needs you and me today. Let's help each other.

Police Blotter
"The Orion," May 22, 2002

Friday, March 8

11:27 p.m. Petty theft reported in the 100 block of West Second Street. "Group of five to six white males were inside approximately five minutes ago. They left and took a stand up 'Shaq.' Reporting party does have a video tape that may have the subjects' pictures."

Top 20 Things to do at a Drive Thru

1. Drive through the drive thru in reverse and let your passenger order.
2. Ask prices of everything on the menu then order something that you did not ask the price for.
3. Pretend like your window is broken. Tell the employee this. Order with your door open, pay with your door open. Roll down window and take food through the window.
4. Go to McDonalds and demand a big breakfast at 11:30 at night. Put up a fight.
5. Pay for a large order in pennies and nickels unwrapped.
6. Order in another language. Be careful what neighborhood you are in.
7. When asked if they can take your order, tell them you are just window shopping and drive on.
8. Laugh sadistically when asked if you would like ketchup.
9. Ask how they fit into that little box.
10. If they make you wait, make them wait when they come back on.
11. Demand to speak to the manager. When he comes on, complain that you did not like the way the employee said "May I take your order?"
12. When asked if they can take your order say "No, why can't I take yours?"
13. If they ask you to wait, order anyway and keep doing it till they yell at you.
14. Pretend like your car broke down. Ask for assistance in moving it. When they come out, drive away.
15. Tell them you have to use the bathroom.
16. Order a cup of water and two napkins. That's it.
17. Don't order when they come on. Just sit there. If a line forms behind you, get out of the car and cause a scene.
18. When they hand you your food, hand them a bag back with all the trash from your car in it.
19. Just stare at them when you pay and get your food. Don't break your stare.
20. Honk your horn the whole way through the line.

You Know You've Worked at Burger King too Long When...

• You have regular customers' orders rung up before they are finished parking.
• Tongs? I don't need no steenking tongs!
• You not only have menu items memorized, but also their prices after tax.
• Waiting for more than 18 seconds before a Whopper appears in the chute is painful.
• You use one hand for the fry basket grab, shake, flip and salt.
• You throw 4 chicken patties into the basket with one hand... and they fall one in each slot.
• Pinching the correct number of napkins is instinctive.
• You don't have to look at the wrap to mark a sandwich.
• You can look at the bag-in-box Coke syrup and predict the exact time you will run out.
• You can't drive within one mile of a BK without recognizing the smell of it's broiler smoke.
• You answer your home phone with "Welcome to Burger King".
• You time your off-hours visits to eat with who you know will be in the kitchen.
• You make up your own names for equipment ("Put the chicken in the steamy drawer," "Hand me the skimmer spoon," etc)
• No more coffee over-flow burns.
• "Would you like ranch, honey, honey-mustard, sweet 'n' sour, or BBQ?"
• You invent games (Beat the Broiler, How many customers will ask for __, Ketchup/Chute races, etc)
• You develop multiple personalities (Bob, Depressed & Suicidal Back Cash Bob, and 12pm Saturday on Whopper Board Psycho Bob)
• Your source of joy from the day comes from getting a new mop head.
• You try and set record burger-making times.
• You draw cartoons on the burger wraps.
• You are no longer bothered when the Broiler catches fire
• During rushes to aviod snapping you apply the ketchup in smiley faces.
• You combine two crowns together and wear it around your waist.
• When really annoyed you use the ketchup and musturd and apply it as pentagrams to the buns calling forth the Burger King to give you strength.

You Know You Need Therapy from Working at Burger King When...

• You juggle the waste.
• If the phrase "trash run!" = "smoke break!".
• When you'd rather be anywhere but working the broiler in July.
• If you've ever hidden a half-eaten Chicken Tender.
• When you know the car honking in the parking lot is your mom's.
• When the best entertainment is throwing an ice cube in the fryer.
• When fetching more meat is like a vacation.
• If you've ever climbed out of the drive thru window to rescue change.
• When sesame seeds become a fashion accessory.
• If on your first day someone asked you to mop the freezer.
• If you ever dreamed you were making Whoppers.
• If you've had to explain a melted nametag, grease pen, kid's meal toy, king sized cup, etc.