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| - Amidst the desert of smoke shops, artsy gift shop(pe?)s, East Asian/Indian/Tofu/Coffee fusion houses, hat shops, bars, and hipster clothing boutiques... there stands an oasis, friends.
It can be grueling, crawling through all those smaller businesses with unique visions and wide eyes. As you stroll along the uniquely named businesses and the earbud-laden millenials, you may feel the world shrink around you. What are these things? Who are these people? Sometimes you just want to be reminded that corporate conglomerates work. That capitalism at its most craven still works. And make no mistake, a frozen square burger is capitalism at its most craven. You know what? It does kinda work.
Don't get me wrong. The food is not good. The employees are not excited. Nothing positive or uplifting or worthwhile is happening here. The menu is the same limited nonsense that every "classic" burger joint has. The food is prepared quickly and thrown at you in a grease-stained bag. But, as you stroll down one of the more unique streets in the country, can you get the same frosty and fries that you can also get in Topeka, KS? Yes, you sure can. The system works! Does it taste passable? I guess!
So let them have their bubble tea! Let them have their stupid frothed lattes! Let them have their mediterranean omelette situation! Let them have some stupid sandwich with "pesto" on it, whatever that is! You and I, pal, we will have a plain old square burger. We will stare misty-eyed at our Norman Rockwell calendar. We will receive our grease-stained bag and sigh wistfully because it feels like home. We will have muttered reservations about "those people," whoever they may be. We will swear we are happy with the familiar, but in the back of our minds that tingle will always exist: we will know that we deserve better.
Wendy's: you deserve better.
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