Monday I wandered into my favorite pizza place. I confess, I could eat a pizza every night. My wife hates it, though. So it's fish or broiled chicken six days a week. But when she's working late, it's pizza for me. Yummy.

The restaurant was empty, as usual. Most people have gotten the message and order out now. Not me. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. The delivery boy nearly bowled me over on his way out. I stood next to the sign which read "Please Wait. The Hostess Will Seat You." Five minutes passed. I finally just walked over to a booth and sat down. There were crumbs and grease on the table top. I pretended to read the menu for five more minutes. Finally, a waitress emerged from the back and came my way. Only she walked right by me and stopped to wipe down a few tables. At that moment a mother with two screaming kids came in. The waitress hurried over to seat them - right behind me, of course.

Finally, after 20 minutes, she appeared with a menu and a glass of water.

"Can I get you a drink while you're deciding?"

"Actually, I know what I want."

"What can I get you to drink?"

"I'll have a large Coke."

"Would a Pepsi be OK?"

"Sure. And get me a pepperoni..."

"I'll be back in a minute to get your order."

A few weeks ago I was returning from a business meeting in Chicago. It was Sunday morning and I had a real early flight from O'Hare. Of course, it was too early for the hotel's restaurant, the overpriced room service was out of the question, and US Airways offered no meal, so I had decided to grab breakfast at the Airport. In fact, my mouth was watering all the way there on the shuttle van.

I literally ran through the terminal to the Food Court. There was quite a line already at the familiar counter. I took my place at the rear. Those hash browns and sizzlin' sausage smelled wonderful. The pancakes and sweet syrup were tantalizing. The coffee tickled at my olfactory bulbs.

There was only one register open, yet there were three lines, converging at the counter. I noticed some counter people "on break," eating sausage biscuits off to the left. Time passed. Finally, after what seemed like an hour, I reached the vaunted front of the line.

"I'll have a sausage..."

But the counter girl wasn't looking at me. Instead, she was taking the order of some guy who had pushed his way in front of the line.

"Sorry, Mac," he barked, "I was here first."

I wasn't going to argue. Especially since he was wearing a gun. One of those airport security types. I figured he would catch more terrorists if he was happy.

Finally, it was my turn.

"One sausage biscuit, hash browns, an order of pancakes,and a small coffee, please, and extra strawberry jelly and syrup, to go."

"Was that to eat here or take out?"

"Take out."

"A small coffee?"

"And a sausage biscuit, pancakes and hash browns, please!"

"Would you like a fresh pastry with that?"

"No, just some extra strawberry jelly and syrup." I paid her and stepped aside to wait for my order. In an expressionless and humorless almost surrealistic dream-like state, she had grabbed the microphone and shouted the order to the back, and then slowly moved to the deep fry to load up a hash brown. Struggling with the little paper holder and scoop contraption, she finally succeeded in snaring one, which she then unceremoniously dropped on the tray in front of me. "One item down, three to go," I thought.

"We're out of coffee, sir, you'll have to wait. Please step aside."

"What, how can you be out of coffee!? At breakfast rush on a Sunday morning?! How could that be," I shouted, as I glanced at the two huge 40-gallon silver coffee makers right in front of me?

"Next..."

Fast food establishments, it seems, have mutated before our very eyes to slow and surly slop houses. Sure, they offer bigger menus. It takes forever now just to read 'em. And try to figure out the difference between the "Three Piece Combo" and the "Captain's Platter." Then there's the counter people. They could all use a course in the Happy Clown Charm School. Not to mention the ubiquitous short term memory problem. Must be the lead in the water. And then there is the gratuitous sales pitch for the stale piece of synthetic apple pie sitting under the glass cover where an ugly fly has managed to alight nevertheless. And how about that nasty habit of wet-mopping the floor all around you as you eat, trying to ignore the chemical smell. And let's not forget the condiments, lying in open pans next to the napkins and plastic utensils, which are always out. Does it bother you that a food worker is always pouring relish into the bin from a dirty container that looks like it doubles at night as a trash bin? And, of course, the propensity for them to load up your tray with a dozen, always warm "artery-cloggers" when you ask for some cream for your coffee.