(AP) Palo Alto. A Palo Alto man known as the Sultan was tragically hit by a car early last Sunday morning while standing at the drive-thru window of a local Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. It was approxiamately 3:15am when an aquamarine Acura Integra drove through the Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru lane and ran over the Sultan and then repeatedly backed up and ran him over again and again.
The driver of the car, one Victor C. Wykoff of Mountain View, said he felt he was not to blame. "Look, I know Jack-in-the-Box, and my friend here, Franklin Baez, he's pretty familiar with Jack-in-the-Box too, and we know they have a policy against serving pedestrians from the drive-thru lane. So we figured there wouldn't be anyone there, so I just floored it. I mean, what the #%@$! If some fool is so stupid that he thinks he is gonna get served on foot, he deserves to die and I wanna wrap my fender around his little brain. I wanna hear my fan belt tear into his flesh."
The Jack-in-the-Box manager on duty, Juan Valdez , said that it is indeed against company policy to serve pedestrian customers from the drive-thru window. Mr. Valdez explained that the customer had been refused service but was standing at the window and demanding two tacos and simultaneously discussing Central American cultural and political issues. Meanwhile, Mr. Valdez continued, another customer was screaming into the drive-thru microphone that he was going to sue Jack-in-the-Box for Vehicular Discrimination. This second customer was not hurt but fled the scene immediately after the Sultan was hit along with several women who are believed to comprise the Sultan's entourage.
Mr. Wykoff has been released on his own recognizance while the Sultan is being guarded at Stanford University Hospital. The Sultan will face charges of ignoring Fast Food Etiquette and could recieve up to ten years in prison, or be forced to eat as many as six Colossus burgers while being denied both CPR and balloon angioplasty.
Meanwhile police continue to search for the second pedestrian who is wanted for violating a new California law barring "verbal assault and battery with intent to incite rebellion amongst minority burger flippers." He has been described as "a no good, swearin', smart-ass-talkin', big-mouth-havin', disrespectin' saucy white male prone to alcohol abuse and sexual innuendo." Police say the description matches that of the man wanted for a recent altercation at The Edge dance club.
The incident is prompting industry action to reduce the number of drive-thru fatalities which have increased markedly in recent years. McDonald's corporation announced a plan recently to enclose it's drive-thru lane and equip a special entrance to the lane with special sensing equipment that will only open if a car is present. Burger King has rejected such a proposal due to fear that customers would leave their cars once the doors opened and still run to the window on foot. Jack-in-the-Box has not announed any formal plan as of yet. At a press conference earlier today a company spokesman simply repeated the word "hibiscus" for several minutes.
Meanwhile Senator Fienstein is proposing legislation that would require that all new "burger joints" on the information superhighway serve both customers in cars as well as on foot equally. Other Senators, including Senator Kennedy are also looking into equity issues concerning dining rights on the information superhighway.