Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
"I've heard of this great place at the end of the universe, it's called, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" Ford said, as he logged in the co-ordinates.
"Oh, well, that's original" Arthur replied.
"Well you know, it could've been called, The Restaurant at the other End of the Universe, The Restaurant at the Start of the Universe, or the Restaurant that has No Really Good Ideas For A Name" Trillian said logically.
Arthur had the decency to keep his mouth shut… for once.
"So… what's it like?" Arthur asked
"It's extra-ordinary! Mind-bogglingly incredible! You've never tasted anything as blissfully artificial as their meals! If you don't believe me, look it up in " the Guide"!" Ford exclaimed, waving his towel around like a mad-man and bowing down to one of the imaginary, famed meals.
Arthur opened the guide, to find an extensive hologram opening up in front of his face.
It showed the grand opening.
"Ladies and gentleman! Welcome to the opening of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe! If you'd just step this way, we'll show you to the "show-room" kitchen, of course not the real one, as it is currently undergoing inquiry for health regulations. Here we have the-
The hologram was abruptly shut down as Zaphod ran past in excitement, exclaiming "the Restaurant at the End of The Universe! We're here!" and knocked the guide to the floor.
The ship pulled into the restaurant's station, and Arthur had high expectations. It was said that every meal was asif to die for, every drink a thousand times sweeter (and more expensive) than anywhere else, and the desert was a delicacy from heaven. Something must have gotten lost in translation.
The Restaurant at the end of the Universe is one of the most well known junk food stores in the galaxy. In fact, one out of every five hundred and fifty three planets has a business like it, whether or not they are civilized enough to know that there are such things as "Restaurants in space". It is well recognized by the simple yet easy to adapt logo consisting of silver arcs, with it's hundreds of cholesterol-filled courses served daily to the galactic public.
It's otherwise known as MacGalaxy.
Formally Spaceway, the items all used to contain less than minus five percent fat, but due to the ever increasing demand for fatty, greasy, guaranteed to blow your arteries up with cholesterol foods, and the target market numbers (immensely obese aliens) exploding to extra-ordinary proportions, the maker was forced to sell to a rather corpulent character who had crimson red curly hair and an equally red, large nose.
Also known as Ronald MacGalaxy.
Arthur was shocked beyond belief when he looked out the window to see the famous restaurant. The other inhabitants were growing hungry, but like most of the galactic population, were discussing the costs of the various items on the menu, rather then what they were actually going to eat.
"Oh common Tril! It's only two more dollars to get the happy meal toy!" Zaphod haggled.
"Zaphod. How many times must I tell you? The toy's are bits of colourful, cheap plastic stuck together. It's cheaper to just get the fries and coke with your meal." Trillian replied.
"I hope what I'm going to say won't depress you, but the whole thing is an overpriced scam, with, on average, every meal costing over three dollars the recommended retail price. The fries are-" Marvin started.
"Oh shut up!" The group shouted.
"Ford! Ford! Do you realize what this is? It's McDonalds!" Arthur exclaimed excitedly.
"No, I do think the other name for it is McGalaxy" he replied and proceeded on to a new topic of discussion.
Drive through, or eat in.
The group walked up to a desk with an obese looking robot standing behind a cash register, after being ambushed with an incredible amount of brainwashing materials in the form of brochures and television ads.
"Ah, Ford. Why are there robots serving?" Arthur asked, obviously believing he was at an earth McDonalds.
"What planet are you from earthman?" Zaphod asked.
Trillian nodded, and explained to Arthur "For years Ronald MacGalaxy felt that his staff were lazy, with an end result of less profits. MacGalaxy then started to reduce wages to what he believed "fitted their working standards", that is, they were reduced to virtually nothing. So Robot's replaced all of MacGalaxy's human workers when it became clear to the Workers' Rights' unions that MacGalaxy had been underpaying and overworking their staff. Rather than conform to society's demands, they fired the lot and brought in robots. However, there was the slight drawback of the robots acquiring a taste for the courses served here, as Ronald McGalaxy blames the decrease of meal size and increase on price on the robots."
"I can tell you, it's a bunch of lies, he bought them with the stereotype of being lazy and over-weight just to fool the ignorant consumers. Depressingly enough, it worked." Martin mumbled and sat down at a table.
"Whaddaya want?" the cashier asked.
Trillian cleared her throat. "Um, excuse me, we'd like to order a kids happy meal, three chicken burgers with coke and fries, an anti-depression robot oil and did you have any low-fat meals?"
"No."
"Didn't think so."
"We do have a burger that was approved to be low in calories from the Foodgroup Society but it was only due to the steep bribe and outrageous blackmail paid by our manager." The cashier said. "Now, that'll be three-fifty."
"Three-fifty! That's outrageous!" Ford said
"What are you talking about? Three dollars fifty is nothing!" Arthur replied.
"No. That'd be three hundred and fifty dollars." The cashier sneered.
"Oh, continue Ford."Arthur said meekly.
"Ahem, as I was saying, that's outrageous! Come on, how about three-fourty-nine?" Ford said as he began the hour long haggle to try to save one dollar.
"Wait a second, do you sell tea?" Arthur said just afterward.
"Yes we do, that's only two dollars." The cashier said.
"Ok, here you go, and here's my frequent fliers 'hot drinks' card" Ford said, paying for Arthur.
"I'm sorry, it's only for coffee, that's why it's nickname is 'coffee card'."
"Stop, tea costs the same as coffee, it technically is a hot drink, and it even takes less time to make! So what's the big difference? I want to see the manager!" As Arthur had never offered such a fight for any cause, the rest of the group were stunned into silence. "Well, at least after we've eaten." There was a collected sigh of relief from the hungry travelers. There was a brief disturbance as Zaphod dueled a three year old alien for the spaceship toy but the group was soon eating there meals.
Afterwards, Zaphod was playing with his happy meal toy and Arthur was working up his line of argument.
"Why did I start this again?" he asked no-one in particular.
"Because Earthman, you believed in the spirit of equality between all races of human and their right to eat any way they want." Zaphod said as he ran around the table with his toy spaceship, making strange "whooshing" noises.
"No, that's not it." Arthur replied, cradling his head in his hands. "It's all because I wanted my Hot Drink Card stamped. Why couldn't I be more like Zaphod, letting others bicker about one issue or another and not particularly caring?"
Zaphod continued to run around the table.
"Come on Arthur! You can stand up to the manager! Go now and get it over and done with." Trillian said and pushed him towards the office.
Arthur gulped in reply. He knocked quickly, then put his hand on the doorknob, and slowly turned it. He opened the door to find a robot behind a desk.
"Um, excuse me, I was looking for the manager?" Arthur asked.
"Your looking at him." The robot replied as he busily shuffled papers from one spot on the desk to another, effectively achieving nothing.
"Wait a second. Wasn't the owner a rather corpulent character who had crimson red curly hair and an equally red, large nose?" Arthur asked.
"Yes, I'm just the manager. It's not hard you know. You yell at people to do "better in there jobs", whatever job it is, make sure the accountant works out the financial side to the business, yell again at everyone to do their jobs and look busy when someone comes to talk to you." The robot said, as he drew a squiggly line on a piece of blank paper. "It's a full time job."
"I see, well my name is Arthur and-"
"Wait a minute, your Arthur? Wait here. No, on second thought, follow me."
"Ok-"
"No talking!"
Arthur wasn't sure if he was allowed to voice his affirmative so nodded vigorously instead. He followed the robot through two hallways, another office with another robot shuffling papers around, through a pair of double doors, another long hallway, through the manager's original office, down a flight of stairs, round a corner, under a giant's table – narrowly avoiding getting squashed by the occupants as they shuffled their lumbering feet around – and into a small room above the original dining area. Arthur could see Zaphod pulling Trillian towards the play equipment.
The robot walked over to a small desk with a microphone and flicked a switch which slid the window in front of them over to the side.
"Customers of MacGalaxy! I have before you the Promised man! I present to you, BurgerKing Arthur!" the manager said. "He will bring this company into immortality, everyone will know our name! He will discover a way to increase prices, increase sales and devise a way to conquer all restaurants, so they will take our name and make us the only restaurant in existence! All shall be completely reliant on us!"
By this time, Arthur had started to sweat and was feeling a little more than scared.
The Promised Man of MacGalaxy was said to bring the restaurant from it's current fame, that is, being The Restaurant at the end of the Universe, and into divinity, where, it is said, it will take over all restaurants and any other business relating to the hospitality industry and shape them after MacGalaxy, each a smaller form of the original business with any and all profit going to the manager and owner of The Restaurant at the end of the Universe.
Of course, this legend was widely known but the first source seems to have come from the assistant manager of MacGalaxy, who is now the manager. But he claims to have had the story passed down to him from his ancestors. Coincidently, no-one else had ever heard of such a legend before.
Later that day, Arthur found himself outside the owner of MacGalaxy's office. He had been summoned by the well-known corpulent character otherwise known as Ronald MacGalaxy. As he entered the room he was over-whelmed with MacGalaxy's logo, it was displayed as a wallpaper, tinted onto the windows, covered the roof like little half-moons, the flowers were shaped in arches – sprayed silver of course – and the tables and chairs were arches with flat, green "pickles" sitting on top.
"Now Arthur, you should have realized by now that this is all a huge sham made up by my brilliant manager. What I really want you to do, is make one public statement, previously written of course, about how this company is revolutionized in terms of foods that satisfies your taste buds and how it has enormous nutritional value." Ronald said, as his over-sized stomach protruded over the table.
"But sir I-" Arthur started.
"No but's, here's your speech, learn it by tonight." And with that Ronald MacGalaxy pushed the papers (complete with background design of silver arches) at Arthur and pushed him out of the room.
The speech was long and boring, basically what you'd expect when reading any kind of business or political speech which circumnavigates around the main topic until it finally gets to the point – which is a bunch of lies anyway. However, there was one particular part of this speech that caught Arthur's attention.
-and then he fell off a cliff. Anyway, the nutritional content of our meals has been proven as "healthy" (in moderation), as it meets the basic needs for our target audience.
'Wait a sec,' thought Arthur, 'The only needs that the target audience of MacGalaxy have, are an endless supply of "comfort foods", being fatty meals that take your mind off your personal problems with their almost over-bearing greasy taste. He's twisted the truth to further gain his aspirations! I never thought a power-hungry business person would stoop so low.' And with those thoughts, he ran back into Ronald's office.
"I can't read this! It's completely warped the truth. If I read this, everyone will believe that these meals have some sought of nutritional benefit, increasing sales and fame for you and your company, based solely on a load of lies!" Arthur stated indignantly. "I can't read this, I won't!"
"Fine, whatever, I don't really care. There's a stunt-double outside who can take over. Nobody will believe you if you do try to discredit the company – thousands have already tried and do you think anyone's cared? You're dismissed." Ronald MacGalaxy said and pressed a big, red button. Instantly, three security robots entered and "escorted" him back to his friends.
The stunt-double presented the speech in front of hundreds of reporters and just three days later, MacGalaxy had taken over the entire fast food industry.
Arthur, Trillian, Zaphod, Ford and Martin walked away with the over-whelming knowledge that the world was doomed to be forever brainwashed by the silver arcs that was MacGalaxy. Arthur learned from his previous mistake of getting involved and so, walked away, doing nothing to save man-kind, letting others bicker about the issue and not particularly caring.