I’ve never spilled their piping hot coffee in my lap, I’ve never discovered a severed finger in their chili and I’ve never noticed trans fats in their fries. I must admit I’ve never had one of those evening, newsworthy experiences at a fast food place. Of course, the coffee is indeed piping, those soy protein conglomerates in the chili base are sometimes large and cylindrical, and I did notice the recent “absence” of trans fats in their potato products, but none of these events were worth writing about. Except the event that occurred last week.

And you may ask what I was doing at a fast-food place. I am, after all, a biology professor, a pinnacle of health-consciousness, a pillar of college society, keen to all the salty proteins, complex carbohydrates and tasty fats fast food has to offer, as well as where these macromolecules are deposited on our bodies for storage.

But I’m certain you understand the universal – or in this case, university – dilemma: After a long day of teaching, advising, meeting and hair-pulling, as one cruises up Madewood Drive on his or her way home and past the biscuit-shaped Catholic Center, one can’t help but ravenously search left and right for a similarly sized egg and sausage patty.

So don’t blame me. Blame Pavlov and Skinner and McDonald (Ronald). I’ve been conditioned.

What happened to me last week was, to say the least, “shocking.” (No pun intended, B.F.) It wasn’t the realization while waiting in line for service that my combustion-engine vehicle generated less greenhouse gas than the lifetime of the burger cow I was preparing to help consume. Nor was it the conniption over not being eligible for a “Bee Movie” toy with my Double Quarter Pounder combo.

After waiting long enough in the drive-through lane to realize that “fast food” and “fast service” are two completely different concepts, I moved on to the intervening part of this American tradition, “fast collection of your money” at the first window. I paid my bucks (not off the dollar menu), and reached out for change. The cashier said, “Thank you! Come again!”

“What?” my brain asked as it mindlessly allowed me to footlessly pull forward to the second window. I’ve never heard such a preposterous thing spoken by any McDonalds employee, much less a cashier who must deal with the extra stress of customers adding arithmetic amounts of pocket change to their payment in order to get as change a bill and not further coinage.

“As if!” I alerted myself. As if I would never come back! Who in America – or dare I say the world – has been to McDonalds once and never gone back? Burgers and fries are like the big Lays Potato Chip of our consciouness – you can’t eat them just once! Of course, it’s the same salt and fat combo that makes these two products, together with cracklings and potted meat, so irresistible. Who needs an invitation to that?

Apparently, not even elementary school children. Check out the August 2007 issue of the Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine. If you can’t find a copy in Ellender Library, there’s one printed as microfiche on the backside of each McDonald’s Monopoly game piece through December of this year. The journal reports the finding that kids prefer the taste of foods wrapped in McDonald’s wrappers than foods in unprinted wrappers. Even carrots, milk and apple juice was voted better tasting if it was presented in a McDonald’s wrapper.

And therein lies the wrongful condemnation of fast foods in a nutshell. Certainly, there’s fat and salt in fast food, but there are no instructions on what parts of your purchase you should eat. Wrappers are low calorie, low salt and high in fiber. In fact, McDonald’s wrappers themselves taste better than ordinary wrappers, according to a recent survey of emaciated mountain goats.

I once worked with an ophthalmologist from China, named Tao. There were as many feet in his height as there are letters in his name. While in America, he and his petite wife (that’s like “zh – niáng” in pinyin) had a baby that grew to be quite large and, as we’d say in America, quite “healthy.” I asked him, “Tao, you are as many feet in height as there are letters in your name, and so is this true of your wife, Ty. How is your son so tall?”

I know that my question sounded like a bad overdub in bad syntax from a bad Chinese movie, but Tao understood, forgave my trans-literal shortcomings, and gave me an honest answer.

“McDonald,” he replied.

So, as you return home Thursday from you cross-town or cross-country visits, carrying with you some leftovers, reheated, dried-out turkey wrapped in reused aluminum foil, don’t despair. The next time you see a ginormous burger on a billboard and feel ginormous guilt about having one, don’t wait for the bell ring or electrical shock. You deserve a break today, and, because you’ll be back, you deserve one tomorrow as well.

And don’t throw away that wrapper.