The outsourcing of American jobs isn’t a laughing matter, and the latest news about this growing trend is literally hitting us below our belts. Yes, we’re talking about fast food. It’s one thing to try to communicate with a stranger in Mexico about questionable charges on your credit card or with someone else in New Delhi, India, about your computer problems. The situation is much more serious now that fast food restaurants, icons of our culture and symbols of all that is good and right about our country, are outsourcing their drive-through orders. According to the International Herald Tribune-New York Times, three McDonald’s restaurants in Missouri, Minnesota and Massachusetts recently began outsourcing their drive-through orders to a call center in Colorado Springs, Colo. With the new system, a Big Mac order shouted into a microphone is typed into a computer in Colorado and a digital photo of the customer’s car is taken in order to reduce errors. The order is then clicked back to the originating restaurant’s kitchen, which has the order ready in less time (30 seconds on the average) and with fewer mistakes. Really! Of course, it’s only a matter of time before other fast food restaurants jump on the bandwagon and decide to outsource their customers’ orders to remote third world countries, where a burger and fries would cost approximately a month’s wages. The following situations will indicate if such a change has taken place at your favorite drive-through window: To begin with, you order a Big Mac and french fries but land up with an order of sushi or a bowl of wonton soup. The voice taking your order yawns, "Good morning!" and it’s 7 p.m. where you live. You order a milkshake and the mechanized voice asks, "Would you like chopsticks with that?" Your order for several all-beef burgers is met with an audible gasp in New Delhi. In an ironic twist of your mother’s advice, "Eat everything on your plate because there are starving people in India," your fast food order is taken by someone very possibly starving in India. After you have placed your order, the voice on the other end of the intercom advises, "Please pull ahead to the first window. The total for your order is 10,040 pesos." Ordering fast food with outsourcing may save time, but it now requires three people — you, the order taker and a translator. The winter wind chill temperature outside your car at the drive-through window is 80 degrees below zero and your car is dwarfed by towering snow banks. When you roll down your car window to place an order, your eyelids begin to freeze shut. However, the voice from South America on the intercom greets you with, "Good afternoon! How are you enjoying this beautiful summer day?" Finally, you can’t understand what the order-taker is saying. All you can hear are garbled sounds. Wait a minute, that’s already happening!