stubborn appetites

Somewhere along 24th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District:

I had a coffee meeting in fifteen minutes and figured that squirming from holding my bladder in wouldn’t be a professional look. So off I went on a hunt for a bathroom in the city. I ducked into a McDonalds, the first one I found that didn’t have a keycode or padlock.

I open the bathroom door and the first person I see is a man eating a chicken burger. No extra fuss or pomp, just a dude enjoying a meal while in line for the urinal. Out of allĀ the places in the city, why would he choose to eat there? The line is short, the tables outside are empty, and there is no public shame in eating a chicken burger. (Peter Singer may say something differently about the morality of eating meat in general, but that’s another issue.)

I could rack my head for potential stories and plot twists, but sometimes the simplest explanation is the truth — the guy was just hungry.