I’ve talked about this before, but since I’m on the move again, grocery shopping is out and fast food is back in. Here are three thoughts that have occurred to me while waiting for my order at the nearest three fast food joints:
When I was in college, a “Thirsty two ouncer” from AM/PM was a huge drink. Just now, at Carl’s Jr. I used a coupon for a free 32 oz. drink. I had to put a medium cap on it. I shudder to think what a large looks like.
When ordering the Sidekickers from Arby’s (Mozzarela Sticks with Marinara Sauce, Loaded Potato Bites with Cool Ranch Sour Cream, Onion Petals with Tangy Southwest Sauce, or Jalepeno Bites with Bronco Berry Sauce) you save a penny if you get two orders of the small instead of a single order of large. FYI, in all three cases, you get five in the small and ten in the large. I guess the penny is a “I’m-not-a-glutton” tax.
At McDonald’s you can save nine cents if you order a double cheeseburger without a patty instead of a cheeseburger directly. (Yes, that’s right: the double cheeseburger costs less than the cheeseburger.)
That last one I find very funny. I imagine the strange pricing has something to do with the not-so-happy meal. I remember last time I used to eat at McDonald’s the two cheeseburger value meal cost more than ordering each part directly. Dave called it “convenience tax.”
Recently, Wendy’s changed all their drink sizes.. If I remember correctly, a small became the old medium, the new medium was the old large, the new large was a biggie — and the new biggie size was just humongous! The fast food world disgusts me sometimes.
Only sometimes? 🙂
At Wendy’s (here in Canada, at least), you can get a single hamburger combo for $3.99, or a double cheeseburger combo for $5.99.
The kicker is that you can “double the beef” for $0.99, which means that a double hamburger combo is $4.98. That means that a slice of cheese is $1.01 in this configuration. I think not (-:
Kicker #2 is that it’s rarely worth your time to explain to the minimum-wage cashier that you want a “single with double the beef”, and not actually a double.
S
Sean,
I wondered about that. A triplexdouble seems to be a better idea though.
Don’t know if this is germaine, but my favorite is the “cheeseburger with fries” at the “In-n-Out” Burger chain (the double-double is too much for me to eat!). I really like the toasted bun. But I think my fascination has more to do with the old SNL skits with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd calling out “cheeseburger, cheeseburger, fries, fries, fries, coke, coke, pepsi, no, we don’t have no pepsi.” Those were so funny. I remember that every time I go to In-n-Out Burger and order a Cheeseburger with fries.
Stuart,
If you mentioned that their combo meals costs the exact same as ordering everything separately, that would be germane. 🙂