Cheat or Treat?

I have a confession to make. I love chicken strips! I don't eat them everyday, but usually once every week or two, I will go through the drive-thru at Braum's (a local fast food place) and I will order a Jr. Chicken strip meal. It comes with two small chicken strips, a small fry and a drink. Chicken strips are about 120 calories each (as best I can tell since Braum's doesn't have their calorie counts on their website) and the fries, maybe 250 or 300 calories and I usually get a diet coke. The last couple of times I've been to Braum's, I only got the chicken strips, no fries. I don't really like fries enough to spend that many calories on them. So today, I went through... I ordered two chicken strips and a diet coke. When I got to the first window to pay, the woman said, "Do you just want to get the meal, it comes with fries." I smiled as I said, "No, thank you. I would just eat them." The woman then proceeds say to me, "Oh come on, you are supposed to treat yourself, not cheat yourself." Once again, I declined and said thank you. I went to the next window and collected my 250 calories or so worth of chicken and my zero calorie diet coke. I couldn't help but wonder though, why would this woman insist on insisting that a 244 pound woman get the fries that she did not order in the first place? Is that her job? Is she supposed to up-sell and if so, shouldn't she have done so while I was still ordering? Or did she really believe that I was somehow "cheating" myself out of the goodness of an all American meal like chicken strips and french fries? I don't think I looked like I was mourning the loss of the fries, but perhaps I had a look on my face that said, 'Oh, I wish I could get the fries too.' I don't know, but for whatever reason, I believe that people should let people make their own choices, especially if they are healthy ones.

On another note, some co-workers were talking today about how restaurants don't "pile it on" like they used to. They were complaining about how you go to these places to eat and you don't get a "heaping" bunch of fries like you did in the past. One of them said that when he worked at Sonic (another local fast food place) he would pack the bags as full of fries as he could and then he would dump some more in the bag just to be nice. I tried to interject and explain that some of us, who are counting calories and trying to stay on a budget, like to know that we are getting an accurate amount of food so that we are not cheated into consuming more than we had planned and it's not very "nice" to get more than what you want. Somehow this great country of ours has come to think that more is better. I believe that it is that way of thinking that has led us to be the most overweight country in the world. They didn't even try to hear my arguments. Saddening, isn't it?

Ok... off my soapbox. And heading off to bed.
Goodnight.

Rachel