I have a friend named Jesse who seems to notice the strangest things and has the strangest ideas. The other day we went to eat at In-N-Out when he began to tell me about the crew.

“Did you notice how at every In-N-Out there are a bunch of white people working?” He said as he took a sip of his root-beer.

“Huh?” I asked. “You’re strange.” I hated to get pulled into these kind of ‘Jesse conversations’ but I knew that I was about to be sucked into this one. “What are you talking about?”

He began his explanation “Every time I go into an In-N-Out hamburger place I always see a whole crew of tall, young, white people working there with the exception of one black person.”

I looked at the employees and he was right. The crew consisted of one black guy and a bunch of white kids. I started to laugh. “You just made that up.” I said.

He looked at me and his face was serious, “No, I’m not making it up. It’s always the same, no matter which one I go to or when I go. The thing about these kids working there is not the fact that they’re Caucasian, it’s the fact that they’re “white” I’m talking about pale, gothic white except that instead of the dark gothic hair, they have blond hair. It’s like these kids are some sort of tall, white, blond haired breed of In-N-Out crewmembers that are intent on taking over the world - or at least the west coast with deciduous double cheeseburgers with their own “special sauce.” I’m serious, look around.”

“dude, there is something wrong with you,” I looked at him and smiled. “Seriously, there is something wrong with you.”

“At first,” he continued as he chewed on a double double, “I thought the one black employee was there as a way to avoid any scrutiny of the pasty colored crew, but the thing I’ve noticed is that not only is one employee black, but he or she is always really dark black. I’m not talking about a mocha color, beige, or even a brown color - the employee is always really dark. Look, look at the dark employee.”

“I’m not going to turn around and look at anything.” I shook my head.

Jesse continued, “Well, if you look, you’ll see that he’s the one in charge. He’s controlling the whole thing. It’s like he’s pulling the strings of the white crew, telling them what do and when to do it”

“He’s probably the boss and that’s what bosses do.”

As we ate Jesse suddenly got this strange look on his face. He had an epiphany. “I just figured it out.” He said all excited. “the dark employee is so dark because he is some sort of skin-pigment vampire and he’s feeding off the skin pigment of the other employees. That would explain why everyone else is so ghostly white.”

“Dude, you really do need some help.”