Do you know what the easiest thing in the whole wide world is? Especially in places in the country where cars are important, strip malls blight residential neighborhoods, and franchises leap at the sweet, deep-fried smell of total world domination? Welcome back to my life, drive-through fast food windows.

Plenty of fast food in San Francisco, of course. But also a whole hell of a lot of wonderful, inexpensive restaurants. They tell me that here in this Tiny Utah Town, which has many excellent qualities, small restaurants do not survive. They open, languish, shut down. But there are lengthy waits for the Olive Garden. You're hungry right now, though. What do you do? You pull up to the Wendy's Drive-Thru and yell at a speaker about hamburgers.

It is possible to make smart(er)(ish) choices--chicken sandwiches are not so bad, right? Even then, a steady diet of the stuff makes you feel sluggish and fat, soaked in oil and coated with self-loathing and a hatred of everything that is good in the world. The problem: it's hard to get away from. Cook for yourself, eat fast food. Sometimes there is no contest. Someday I am going to turn into a chicken nugget, if I'm not careful. I've got to start being careful.