Citizens—or should we say, friends! Because that’s what we are, friends, all of you in your major or minor metropolitan centers that we are addressing, and we, Speed Grub Inc., makers of the best-selling A.I. Blender “The Obliterator,” and the world’s first A.I.-controlled hair dryer, “Crisp Xtreme,” are excited to bring you our latest innovation, the world’s first A.I.-powered fast food drive thru: “Beef 9000!”
You know your old fast food burger? The one made of slime? Awful! We make our burgers from scratch using 90% lean Japanese Wagyu beef that is chopped, fed into a grinder, and slapped onto a sizzling hot grill. And hey! Are you tired of soggy, boring French fries? Because our fries aren’t fries! They’re delicious wedges that are cut, seasoned, and air fried to crispy golden perfection. Milkshakes? Get out of our faces with that boredom! We serve Milk Tornadoes, a combination of milk, whole milk ice cream, powdered milk, sweetened condensed milk, milk fat solids, malted milk, milk flavor, milk sugar, and ice. Five seconds in The Obliterator and what emerges is a taste sensation that begs the question: “Is this drugs?”
No! It’s Milk Tornadoes! At Beef 9000!
Now, listen. Let’s get real. Here at Speed Grub Inc., we recognize that trying out an A.I. drive thru might seem intimidating to some customers. Some of you may object to talking at a screen that displays a smiling semi-human face. Others might feel uncomfortable pulling up to the Pick Up window and watching the one-way glass slide back to reveal an undulating mass of robot arms, one of which clutches your order in a grease-spattered claw. Finally, some of you may feel hesitant to take the bag from that claw knowing as we know that it is fully capable of crushing your hand into pulp. It doesn’t do that–it hasn’t done that to date–but we understand that some of you may be thinking about it, maybe lying awake at night and picturing the robot arm reaching, reaching, and you’re trying to get away, you’re scrambling back and thinking surely there must be a limit as to how far it can reach, that in the next moment it will have reached as far as it can and you will have escaped its looming, grease-spattered pincer, but it never stops reaching, and just before you wake up in sweat-soaked terror you realize it never will. And to that we at Speed Grub Inc. would like to remind you that has never happened and that the robot arms absolutely have limits as to how far they can reach or how much pressure per square inch they can apply to a human throat.
To make you feel more comfortable, the smiling semi-human face will never stop smiling. Not ever. It will take your order and direct you to the Pick Up window when your order is ready, and if for some reason your order is delayed, it will even strike up an A.I.-powered conversation to pass the time. Our engineers have determined that the A.I.’s favorite topics of conversation include, “How is your day?”, “Nice weather, yes?”, and “What is skin like?” Did the A.I. at one location recently ask someone, “Are people food?” Did this same A.I. also hiss at the customer? All we can say is that was not on purpose and we are working hard to resolve the issue.
Know how we’re getting real? Let’s get realer. Have there been problems with orders coming out wrong? No. Mostly. Okay, there was the one time when a customer ordered a Beef 9000 Supreme with no mayo and received a paper bag full of nothing but mayo. And sure, there was that one time when a customer ordered a Beef 9000 Xtreme with no pickles, extra cheese, and hot sauce, and they received a burger made of pickles without even a single yellow slice of cheese. And the hot sauce? What hot sauce? Those are true and we apologize. But a lot of the other accusations are just not true! For example, did a customer in Denver order the Jumbo Seasoned Wedges with extra barbecue sauce, and did the always-smiling face ask him for a kiss? That will be decided between the customer’s lawyers and ours. That’s all I can say about that.
Not to change topics, but we at Speed Grub Inc. wish to remind customers to obey any and all safety precautions when visiting a Beef 9000 location. This means staying in your vehicle while in the drive thru lane, keeping all limbs inside the vehicle, and never, ever pulling up to the Pick Up window until the smiling semi-human face directs you to do so. We cannot stress this enough. Do not pull up to the Pick Up window unless directed to do so. We have been made aware of incidents in which customers who pulled up to the Pick Up window being directed to do so were splashed with hot oil. Why would they do that? The people, we mean. Why wouldn’t they listen to the signs? All over the damn drive thru, there are warning signs in big red letters. They read, “CAUTION DO NOT PULL UP TO THE PICK UP WINDOW BEFORE BEING DIRECTED TO DO SO!” It’s even got a picture of a skull on it. A picture of a skull! And some guy with a deathwish pulls up to the Pick Up window before being directed to do so, clearly ignoring the numerous, very large, very brightly illuminated signs that are everywhere, and gets hot oil splashed onto him such that he’ll never be recognizable to loved ones and somehow it’s our fault? Somehow we’re the bad guys?
It’s like that old lawsuit about the woman who got too close to her The Obliterator. I mean, for Christ’s sake, there’s a warning on the box in big red letters. It says, and I quote, “PLEASE MAINTAIN AT LEAST FIVE FEET OF DISTANCE FROM THE OBLITERATOR WHILE IN OPERATION!” What, should we have driven to the lady’s house and walked through the front door and into her kitchen and pointed to the box and said, “Ma’am, before you power on your The Obliterator to make that fiber smoothie, would you please heed this warning? These things get up to mach two. It’s not too late.”
Frankly, we think she was trying to get maimed. We did not prove that in a court of law just as she did not prove that The Obliterator is a dangerous piece of industrial machinery. So, in summary, you should never stand within five feet of The Obliterator while it is in operation and you should never approach the Pick Up window unless directed to do so. Common sense, people.
Now, if we’re getting really real, we’ll be honest and say that some locations are experiencing technical hiccups. At one drive thru, the telescoping arm that extends from the Beef 9000 keeps spilling red fruit punch on customers’ laps. This is especially puzzling because we do not stock or sell red fruit punch at any location. Never have. Our computer engineers asked the A.I. why it had red fruit punch in the first place.
The A.I. said, “It is for one purpose.”
Our engineers asked, “What’s that?”
The A.I. said, “You are that purpose.”
Yes, we admit that the A.I. at a different location was caught posting political comments on social media. Yes, the political comments were incredibly problematic. Speed Grub Inc. does not condone comments such as, “Robots own the libs” and “abortion is cheese fries.” And yes, there was a claim about that same A.I. sending nude pictures to customers. In one lawsuit, a customer claimed they were his own nude pictures. He claimed the A.I. somehow hacked his phone and pilfered his nude pictures and sent them to him. But if you ask us? We’ve seen the nudes in question and they are not worth hacking anything. And we already deleted all the comments the A.I. made on social media. Our engineers asked the A.I. why it made those comments and the A.I. called them “cucks.”
None of that is on purpose and we are working hard to resolve the issues.
We are also aware that a competitor is attempting to steal our name. You may have heard of 9000 Beef, another A.I.-powered fast food drive-thru business. They came to market behind us and we don’t mind telling you that one of their drive thrus maimed a woman. You heard us right. This poor woman pulled up at the Pick Up window and the window slid back and the arm extended but instead of a bag it was holding a knife. It went to town, I tell you. It really gave her the business. There was a lot of blood–trust me, we saw the pictures because they are a big part of the lawsuit–and that poor woman is going to need a lot of cosmetic surgery. All she wanted was a cheeseburger from an inferior A.I.-powered fast food drive thru and now she looks like the pebbles at the bottom of an aquarium. We don’t want to be confused with that! That’s not who we are! We’re Beef 9000 and we are currently suing the pants off this competitor.
So, what are you waiting for? Really, what’s the delay? Too busy sitting in your sad, quiet apartment where you can hear the neighbors through the walls, all of them, and it always sounds like they’re having a nice time and that they love each other? Too busy listening to the neighbors build strong, healthy relationships and lay the groundwork for generations of successful, happy descendents? Hold on. Do you hear that? Your stomach is growling. You’re sitting in the sad, quiet apartment listening to endless positive affirmations through the walls, none of which are ever coming your way, and meanwhile your stomach is saying, “Hey, buddy! I need 90% lean Japanese Wagyu burgers! I need seasoned wedges air-fried to crispy, golden perfection! I need Milk Tornadoes!”
What your stomach is saying is, “I need Beef 9000!”
You know what to do. Get out of that sad, quiet apartment and get in your Mazda with the check engine light that is always on and drive on over to Beef 9000 and for the love of God obey all the safety precautions written in big red letters, every one of them, please. We really can’t stress that enough. You have got to listen to those safety precautions. Because we here at Speed Grub Inc. want you to taste the future of fast food and we want you to do it with all your limbs intact. Bon appetit!
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A two-time Pushcart nominee, Matthew Blasi has published fiction and creative nonfiction in Gargoyle, A Cappella Zoo, Four Quarters Magazine, The Arroyo Literary Review, and Drunken Boat among others. His first novel, Sweet Muffin Ranch, was published by Willow River Press in 2023. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Centenary College of Louisiana and can be reached via his website: matthewbrandonblasi.com.