Fries

So I’m sitting at MacDonalds and I’m thinking about the fries. Everyone has had McDonalds fries at some point in their lives whether they will admit it or not. I personally still love McDonalds fries. Actually I was more thinking about the container that the fries come in. You know those odd shaped containers with the arced bottom and the yellow stripes on the inside. Well, why is it that those fry containers don’t stand up very well on their own. When I first thought of this - before I whipped the laptop out right here in the restaurant - I was convinced that the fry containers couldn’t stand on their own at all - however they can - at least when they are empty (as mine is right now) However they aren’t very stable at all. So this again begs the question - why? The only other fast food fries that I can think of right now are the ones that are served at Wendy’s and those served at KFC. Both of those have large circular bases that remove any ambiguity about how they should be oriented in space. This is of course useful to keep the fries in the container until such a time that you deem it necessary to remove them for consumption. As for MacDonalds fries, they tend to lie down, spilling fries over your (sometimes wet) tray. Even the employees here lay them down by default, so obviously there isn’t some sort of fry stacking procedure included with their standard training. Either that or no one else but me cares - which would seem to be the case, because everyone else around me is simply eating their fries in blind compliance - whilst the container is laying on its side. Go figure eh.

Written at 16:46 on March 15, 2003