Titania by John Simmons

Jesus in the McDonald's Drive-Through By Barbara Jo Mattson

It's not like I handpicked that box of McDonald's cookies; the I'm-so-pretty high school diva behind the drive-through window had just pulled it from the bottom of the cookie box dispenser.  It had to be just a coincidence...or maybe it was a sign.

Normally I don't even look at the food I get from the drive-through - it's better for my appetite if I don't see the grease I'm putting into my stomach. This time, though, I was stuck at one of those annoying stoplights regulating traffic entering the freeway. I had already slammed down my Big Mac and fries and washed them down with half of my super-sized Coke.

I popped open the top of the purple-edged Grimace box, being careful not to rip the convenient resealing tab, in case I didn't eat all of them (right). After crunching down the first two cookies - both Ronald McDonald-shaped - I pulled out a Birdie cookie. As I lifted it to my mouth, I turned it over - even I'm not sure why. There He was. Just like that. Jesus - etched in the back of the Birdie cookie, as if He has nothing better to do than to hang around (no pun intended) on the back of Birdie cookies.

Without thinking, I lifted my foot off the brake to roll forward one car length. My attention was on the cookie.  Images ran wild through my mind...

...I saw fanatics burning candles around my car, waiting to see if the cookie would speak, or cry, or bleed.

...I heard my grandmother scolding me, "I told you not to leave the congregation. Now he's come to get you back."

...I saw the numerous headlines on various tabloids - "Commuter finds God on the road - literally", "Jesus said, 'I am the Way', and appears on the interstate", and "How to tell if Jesus is living in your cookie jar."

...Geraldo called me a liar when I tell him that the Virgin Mary did not send me visions the bathtub when I was a child

...Oprah and I cried as the Pope convinced me to rededicate my life to the church. Nuns surrounded me and draped me in a black habit as the camera closed in on my mascara-streaked eyes.

I looked back at my cookie.

I ate it.