Last weekend, I drove from San Francisco to Denver — 20+ hours if you go straight through without stopping.

Somewhere in the wide-open desert of Nevada, fatigue hit me hard. I pulled off the interstate, found a McDonald’s, turned off the engine, reclined the seat, and took a quick 15-minute nap. Pure bliss.

When I woke up, I felt surprisingly good — a little hungry, a little groggy, but ready to roll. So I said to myself, Neil, treat yourself. Get a little something to eat.

I walked inside, looked up at the menu, and made the healthiest possible choice for a man on a 1,200-mile road trip: a large order of fries and an Oreo McFlurry.

Then it happened.

I walked up to the counter — yes, the actual counter — and before I could say a word, a woman in a McDonald’s uniform came out from the kitchen and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t serve you.”

Excuse me?

“You can’t serve me?”

“That’s right,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’ll need to order from one of the kiosks.” She pointed to three large glowing screens off to the side — not even where the cash registers used to be — like some kind of self-service shrine to the god of automation.

For a second, I thought I was being pranked. Surely, she didn’t mean it literally. But she did.

“You’re telling me,” I said, “that you can’t take my order — even though I’m standing right here in front of you — but I can walk over there and tell a machine instead?”

She nodded and said, “It is corporate policy.” And that’s when my blood started to boil.

And then — the final absurdity — she escorted me to the kiosk and entered my order for me. I told her what I wanted, she tapped it in, printed a receipt, and said I could pick up my food when they called my number… at the counter… right next to the spot where she was forbidden to take my order.

Progress, apparently.

We’ve officially reached the point where a human being can’t take your order but can help you tell a computer to take it for you. Somewhere in McDonald’s headquarters, a Vice President of “Digital Efficiency and Customer Engagement Optimization” probably got a bonus for this stroke of genius.

But this isn’t just about McDonald’s. It’s about the direction we’re heading — fast. Grocery stores, airports, pharmacies, even hospitals — everywhere we turn, companies are racing to replace people with machines. The pace at which human interaction is disappearing is staggering.

And yet, every study on happiness and longevity says the same thing: the single most important ingredient for a fulfilling, healthy life is relationships.

And those relationships come in three types:
1. The deep ones — with your spouse, partner, family.
2. The enduring ones — your friends, old and new.
3. The incidental ones — those small, casual, everyday connections with strangers: the cashier, the Uber driver, the person at the deli counter.

That third group might seem trivial, but it’s not. It’s the invisible thread that keeps us connected to the larger human fabric. And we’re ripping that thread out — willingly — in exchange for the illusion of convenience.

So what do we do? How do we fight back?

Let’s make a special effort not only to smile at the cashier, the Uber driver, the flight attendant — but to engage with them. Ask a question. Crack a joke. Say something human.

And let’s go one step further: boycott the kiosks. Don’t use them. Wait for a person. And when you do, tell management why. Tell them you value the human connection — and that it matters to you. Because it does.

I got my fries and my McFlurry. But I also got a wake-up call — one that made me realize we’re trading away our humanity faster than a Happy Meal toy disappears from the shelf.

If that’s progress, count me out. I’ll take my fries — and my humanity — the old-fashioned way.