I’ve become that guy. That McDonald’s guy. The one who sits in the same booth every day and eats the same meal. The guy who, over time, slowly creates a groove in the shape of his buttocks in the booth where he sits. I’m that guy now. I’ve eaten lunch here every day for the past two weeks, and everyone who works here treats me like someone who’s probably going to hang himself in the near future.

Which I might if I have to keep eating this shit. They’re smart to deny me the restroom key.

So why am I eating here every day? No, I’m not doing some Super Size Me thing where I make myself vomit on camera and then my buddies and I all congratulate ourselves on the great thing we just captured. I have a much more prestigious, classy agenda behind this stupidity. There’s a very logical reason why I’ve sat here for 14 straight days, eating the classic “cold burger in a warm bun” meals McDonald’s offers while being tortured by their special brand of ambiance: a fry cooker beeping for 20 minutes straight until a homeless man shouts angrily at the register girl, “Shut that shit the fuck up, dumb bitch!” The reason I’m here, dear reader, is because McDonald’s has their Monopoly game running again, and I’m trying to win a Fiat.

Yes, a Fiat 500. The girliest car on the road. The one from that Jennifer Lopez commercial where she drives around trying to look all cool, but she’s in a Fiat so she can’t quite pull it off. The car with the advertising campaign that makes it clear that no grown man will ever buy this car. The ads that seem specifically created for people who like shiny things and mediocre pop music.

I’m trying to win this Fiat because I don’t own a car. Roughly a year and a half ago, I crashed my vehicle into an SUV driven by a woman who works at a law firm. Oops. Despite her only having a damaged bumper, she maxed out my insurance and then tried to sue me for additional money. The joke was on her, because I was an unemployed douchebag with no noticeable worth or use to society. She sent me a form to list my assets. I listed both of them: a wooden table I found next to a discarded toilet in my neighborhood and a free t-shirt I received for signing up for a credit card. She quickly dropped her suit, I assume because she already owned the same t-shirt.

So I’m here in McDonald’s trying to win a Lady Fiat so I can pretend I’m a real person again. The odds of me winning this car are roughly one in ten billion, but that’s still much better than the odds of me getting laid after telling my dates we’ll be riding around in a Metro bus full of transsexual hookers all night. (There is no other type of bus available in the evenings here in Los Angeles.)

If I win the car, I plan to sell it, buy a much shittier car, and use the leftover money to buy pancakes. How many pancakes? A SHITLOAD of pancakes, that’s how many! At least 1,000 pancakes. I will likely have to charge the syrup on a credit card.

So here I sit every day, trying to win a Fiat. I have every game piece on the Monopoly board except the winning ones. I’ve won at least eight free Redbox video rentals, which I was really excited about until I realized I already have Netflix, Bittorrent, and a crippling desire to watch movies that don’t star Ice Cube or Vin Diesel.

I’ve also won a large number of free McFlurrys, which I used yesterday to try to put myself into a diabetic coma so I don’t have to eat McDonald’s food or live on this Earth anymore. I’ve also occasionally won Coke Rewards Points, the uselessness of which results in me angrily pounding the table and shouting profanity. I then end each lunch period by carefully studying the restaurant’s other patrons from afar, waiting for someone to accidentally throw away their game pieces so I may dig through the trash and retrieve them.

Will this scheme of mine work? Hell no. Will I have to add yet another fast food restaurant to my lengthy list of places where I’ve embarrassed myself and can no longer eat? Indeed I will. In the end, will I find myself suffering from a crippling case of diarrhea when I return to eating normal food that isn’t made completely from muskrat anuses? Indubitably.

But on the near-impossible chance that I DO win a Lady Fiat, I’ll be rich. Not regular people rich, but certainly hobo rich, which is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “an unlikeable person who drives a Fiat and lives in a neighborhood where lower-middle class people discard their toilets.” And that, my dear reader, is pretty amazing for someone who nearly died in a puddle of his own Chicken Nugget vomit a few moments ago.