The other night, I stopped at a local Mickey D's to get an Oriental Chicken Salad (pretty tasty). The drive thru had a line that resembled a large metal multi-colored snake coiled through the parking lot. Having just dropped $40 bucks at the gas station only to hear the gas pump toff in my car and not wanting to burn it all off at once I went inside the place.

Inside the restaurant was just as packed as the drive-thru. Not your typical dinner hour rush, though. This was a church group, consisting of families. Each one of them were either black or Mexican, reflective of the neighborhood. Blue collar, hard-working for the most part, caught between the suburbs and the turmoil of the inner city.

There were a couple of white guys. Turns out they were the pastors of this little church group. They must have been having a bible study or its aftermath at McDonald's, because now kids and parents were in line getting their Big Macs and McNuggets. Me, I'm looking like some creature from outer space ("An Oriental Chicken Salad to go, please, and a bottled water.") The kid behind the counter acted as though I had a hidden camera and any second Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out and say "Duuuuuude, you got punked!!"

Turns out the surprise was on me. Actually it was more of a shock and disgust. No, there was no foreign matter in the salad. It was when one of the pastors was interrogating this one black kid, maybe 11 or 12 years old, about his level of devotion and his unabashed love for Jeeeeeeezzzzzussss.

"You reading your bible?"

"Y-y-y-y-y-es."

"You keep the Holy Ghost with you?"

(at this point the child's large clear eyes are on the verge of exiting his skull unassisted).

"y-y-y-y-y-y-es"

"Praise da lawd!!!!" The Oral Roberts wannabe goes to his table where the other pastor is seated, and awaiting them both is a chessboard. They begin to play a variation of speed chess.

After a minute, the pastor asks another child to stand in line for him and get him an Angus Deluxe Burger, as if these kids are his slaves.

Here comes the worst of it.

The guy has his wallet and an envelope on the table. He opens his wallet. It has cash in it. I know this, because he wasn't discreet at all. Then he opens the envelope, which has even more cash and some checks in it.  Again, no discretion in his actions. It was obvious that this was the money from the proverbial collection plate. He gave the kid a $10 and said "make sure ya bring me back my change!"

I shook my head and walked away, sad with the realization that these families, who go to church to find inner peace and solace, who are far from wealthy, and in many cases are living paycheck to paycheck, are being screwed by the very people where they have placed their deepest trust in the matter of their personal faith. There would be more honor in selling reading glasses to Stevie Wonder than in what this charletan displayed.

Like I said, the line was long. I got to see a lot. And it was deeply disturbing.