The other day, I was driving back from Atlanta with a few friends after an ultimate Frisbee tournament, when we all collectively realized we had a hankering for a milkshake. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem. After all, there are probably more than 100 fast food stops on the way from Atlanta to Tuscaloosa, most of which serve milkshakes or at least something similar. Wendy’s has Frosty milkshakes, and McDonald’s has McFlurries or McCafé shakes, but they’re all basically the same.
There was a problem, and a major one at that, because we all wanted a Chick-fil-A milkshake, and, of course, it was Sunday. I’ll admit I’m not a huge Chick-fil-A fan. I eat their food when its convenient, but even passing at least three Chick-fil-A restaurants each day, I never feel particularly tempted to order an eight-pack. However, whenever Sunday rolls around, more often than not, there’s nothing I want more than a large order of waffle fries, some chicken nuggets and a cookies-and-cream milkshake.
After reading countless tweets about people’s post-church Sunday struggles after remembering that Chick-fil-A is closed Sundays and witnessing multiple cars pull up to Chick-fil-A drive-thrus before realizing their mistake, I have determined that everyone is susceptible to the curse of the Sunday Chick-fil-A craving.
We all know Chick-fil-A is 10 times more appealing on Sundays, but the real question is why? I think it has something to do with the old adage, “We always want what we can’t have.”
At one time or another, we’ve all set our eye on a particular guy or girl and then worked tirelessly to get their attention. When we didn’t have them, the goal was clear. But the minute we finally got them to notice us, we forgot why we wanted their attention in the first place, and their appeal vanished as quickly as it came.
It’s human nature to be all about the chase – the process being more important than the final product and the journey more important than the destination.
Maybe if Chick-fil-A was open Sundays, we’d all stop craving it so much, but we’ll probably never know. Despite the pleas of thousands of griping costumers over the years, Chick-fil-A has been closed on Sunday since it opened 68 years ago.
So I guess since Chick-fil-A seems pretty adamant about their Sunday policy, we’ll all have to learn a lesson from the Rolling Stones in realizing that we can’t always get what we want, and maybe finding what we need is realizing we don’t need to drink a shake with more than one and a half times the daily recommended amount of sugar.
