Amy Lu's View

I’m not comfortable touching a stranger’s sausage patty. 

I actually pride myself in not being overly squeamish, but I’m not really looking to touch anybody’s sausage patty–they’re greasy, even slimy, by design.

But the sausage patties were on my windshield, in the context of Egg McMuffin-like sandwiches, accompanied by several unopened packages of chocolate mini-donuts. So I felt the most expedient course of action was to handle them–as briefly as possible and using a wrapper as a shield–to remove them from my windshield.

Yeah, it was an unexpected, and decidedly weird situation. I got in my car to go home after an awesome night of outdoor music at the local Silverwood Park, and realized there were seemingly uneaten Egg McMuffins and wrapped mini-donuts on my windshield. I can be oblivious and unaware of the details of my surroundings, but I’m 98 percent certain the food items were not there when I got out of my car. 

I was so discombobulated by the situation that I didn’t take in all the details, and unfortunately, can’t capture the situation in accurate detail.

I also opted NOT to take a photo, which I regret, but, well…I was confused, AND embarrassed. I’m not sure why I was embarrassed–I wasn’t responsible for the situation, but there were people around, and I just wanted to remove the food from my windshield as quickly as possible without drawing more attention to myself. 

(I do want moral high ground points for gathering up all the food and depositing it in the compost bin). 

Now that I’m comfortably at home with all traces of sausage patty grease washed away, I’m burning with questions and curiosity. WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND THIS? 

I belong to a family with at least one notable instance of food-throwing (which I’m happy to talk about in direct communication), so I know this can be a sign of a rich and complex narrative.

Plus, I just wrote in my last blog post how deeply troubling, and potentially meaningful, I find wasted food–so I am primed to be intrigued by this. (I find wasted food so disturbing that I briefly wondered if I should save the wrapped, unopened donuts and try to find a home for them). 

Questions are swimming around in my head that I may wrestle with until the day I die. (Maybe this whole incident should be tackled in the next season of the Serial podcast). My questions fall into two main categories that I will label “logistical” and “narrative”.

Logistical Questions:

• Were these actual Egg McMuffins? 
• Were they purchased at breakfast time and held on to until the evening? 
• Where can one buy Egg McMuffin rip-offs? 
• Where can one buy authentic or knock-off Egg McMuffins in the evening? 
• Why all the mini-donuts? 

Logistical Conclusions: Based on the lack of clear McDonald’s branding and the presence of mini donuts, I think this was food stuff purchased at a gas station. Time of day unknown, but probably post-breakfast. 

Narrative Questions:

• Who threw the food?
• Why? Was it thrown in anger? Anger at a person? Frustration in the quality of the food? 
• Why was it only at my car? Random nature of the universe, or does someone have a grudge against old Honda Fits? Did I unknowingly piss someone off while I was parking my car? 

Narrative Conclusion: I think some teens had some gas station goodies that they were tossing around to each other that accidentally ended up on my windshield. 

This was just a random and perplexing little incident–that illustrates not only are there “…eight million stories in the Naked City,” but at least eight stories at your fully-dressed local park. 

And, sausage grease is hard to clean off a windshield.