…how you can’t get a decent McDonald’s hamburger any more?

I mean, I know that the word “decent” is relative when you’re talking about McDonald’s food, but still: The quality of McDonald’s has slid steadily for the last five years or so, and the service has tailed off as well. Nowadays, if I’m the only one at the register I still expect to wait ten or fifteen minutes to get my burger,a nd it’s always a pleasant surprise when they get it right.

I have a weird relationship with McDonald’s. Even on a good day, their food sucks, and yet…and yet…I’ve met no fewer than three lovers at McDonald’s, and I still eat there at least four times a week. McDonald’s has played a very weird role in my romantic life as well as in my culinary life.

The decline of McDonald’s over the past few years might have something to do with the fact that the unemployment rate is so low that a blind, one-legged ex-con can get a job as a security guard, so it’s virtually impossible for McDonald’s to hire anyone. (Why work for McDonald’s when with the same experience you can get venture capital for a dot-com startup and be driving a Ferrari by next Tuesday?) So perhaps the economic downturn will set things right under the Golden Arches.

In the meantime, I’ll just eat my overcooked burger on its stale bun and dream…