Wild Release #509

I didn't mean to start any trouble, really, I didn't. I *like* Wendy's. I enjoy their food, their drive-thru window is always quick, they don't make mistakes on orders. Perhaps that's why I felt the tiniest twinge of guilt when I left "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal," by Eric Schlosser, on the brick ledge outside the front door of the Wendy's on Route 119 North in South Greensburg before I went in to enjoy lunch. Little did I know, I would be a witness to the controversy.

I was sitting at a table, enjoying my lunch and my current read, when two men walked in--one clutching the book I had just left. He took it up to the counter and told them, "Look what I found outside." He seemed to be very familiar with the staff, because they thought he was playing a practical joke on them, not believing that someone would leave a book--and that particular book--on the ledge outside the door. He insisted he had found it and even asked others in the restaurant to vouch for his veracity. After he handed it over to the woman who seemed to be in charge of the kitchen, she, in turn, handed it over to a suit who was sitting at a table covered with paperwork and relayed the preposterous story. He started flipping through the book, and seemed to be reading it when I left the restaurant. I can't decide if this is good or bad for the book's fate. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't end up in a dumpster behind the store.