Gauntlet O' Grease

I try to do the right thing. Honestly, I do. In all instances, I make a sincere, concerted effort to be responsible. That includes eating. However, circumstances are such that makes things difficult for me. Well, not just me; anybody who ever works outside of the 9AM to 5PM parameters. And the later you have to work, the tougher it is. It's extremely difficult to shop and it's not convenient to cook when you come home after midnight. So as much as you try to avoid it, eating out is something you just have to do sometimes.
That's bad.
For one thing, it's not a wise way to spend money. But worse than that are the options available to you as a late night diner. Here is the list of places that serve food and are open after midnight on Hillsborough Avenue between I-4 and where I live:

• Steak & Shake
• Arby's
• Denny's
• Some chicken wing joint (I don't know the name, never stopped there)
• Burger King
• Popeye's
• Dunkin' Donuts
• McDonald's
• Checkers
• Krystal
• Wendy's

Of those, the one place that stands out as most likely to provide a legitimate meal with some kind of positive nutritional value is Denny's, and that's just because their ketchup doesn't come in single-serve packets.

Why is it that the worse the food is (or worse for you anyway), the later the place stays open? Subway, which touts itself as a healthy alternative to fast food, closes at 11, while Checkers is open til 4AM and Krystal is open around the clock. I think it's a conspiracy. I think the general feeling is that most people who are out and about "after hours" are probably up to no good, which is probably true. After all, nobody donates blood at 2AM or reads to blind orphans at 3:30AM. So somebody decided to thin the herd by fattening them up and getting them to kill themselves. That's the only theory that makes sense to me.