By Eric Valentine
Let’s be honest. As much as I value and practice and advocate healthy eating, home cooking and enjoying authentic cuisine, it’s not always convenient or easy. Sometimes, a McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin, hash browns, and medium coffee with one creamer is a guilty-pleasure go-to, a way to balance out the positive effects of a morning hike with my dog. The other day, while in the drive-thru, I found myself guilty of hypocrisy—and not the dietary kind.
Let’s fast forward real quick to this past weekend. I gave a keynote speech at this year’s KYMfest in Nampa, a celebration dedicated to Kym Larsen who was murdered in a domestic violence assault in March 2018. In response, the victim’s family created a nonprofit organization that connects anyone providing or needing support in dealing with trauma. They use the motto “Kind Your Mind” (the initial letters of which spell “Kym”) in the hopes of rooting out the triggers to systemic violence.
So naturally, I crafted a speech on such triggers, and it was an altercation at a fast-food drive-thru that reminded me we all have work to do. Here’s how the episode went down:
I arrive at one of those big-city double-lane drive-thrus where you have to eventually merge to pick up your food and pay.
My enormous red wagon was clearly next in line to merge, ahead of a lady in a small blue sedan. But before I moved forward, she sped up, indicating she was going to cut me off.
I really couldn’t have cared less, but because she was cutting me off, I was preventing the driver behind me from getting close enough to the microphone to place his order. So, I drove forward just a scooch to try to make room. The lady in the blue car, without looking at me and just reading on her phone, scooched up each time I did, too.
When the cars ahead of us all moved up on full spot, the lady in the blue car—again without even looking at me—floored the gas, cut me off for good, and slammed on her brakes before she nearly rear-ended the car ahead. I blasted my horn.
She then rolled down her window and said, “I ordered before you, so you can shut up now, thank you!”
My initial response wasn’t bad at all. I said, “You know that’s all you had to say when you cut me off the first time. I would have let you go ahead.” No response.
My second response was also acceptable. I said, “I was only inching forward to let the man behind me get his order in. It’s called being polite. You should try it some time.” No response.
Feeling beyond ignored and entirely dismissed, my third response was this, “You ordered before me, huh? I bet you ordered more than me too, fat bitch!” She was truly obese. I say that not to make an excuse for myself, but to illustrate how mean I was being in that moment, conveniently and easily if immediate satisfaction is one’s goal.
She then flipped me off and called me an expletive. My response was this, “So that’s what it took for you to communicate with me. I had to be mean. Think about that as you chow down your breakfast.” She barked another expletive back at me and I was able to let that one go.
When she reached window #1 to pay, I could see her talking more than one would expect to the cashier, and I didn’t see her hand over money or a card. I thought, “Great, I bet someone heard me call her that name and paid for her meal to show an act of random kindness. I wish they’d seen what she did to me.”
I then finally reached window #1 myself and grabbed my card to pay. The cashier said, “Sir, the person two cars ahead of you has already paid for your meal.”
I hope my speech on kindness last weekend did some good for whomever heard it. When put to music the way I do on stage it has done a lot of good before. But beyond the right words, it’s kind action that will root out systemic violence in a culture. And it sometimes doesn’t happen conveniently or easily. But it’s a happy meal we all should digest.