Junk Food In The US

Fast food joints:
McDonalds, of course. Burgers, fries, milk shakes.
Burger King, really bad hamburgers
Sonic, think it's mostly drive thru. Burgers, etc. I think they have a rep for really good fries (chips to you)
Hardees - this is mostly a Southern chain. Hardees breakfasts are very popular featuring mostly biscuits and some kind of meat, usually ham or sausage.

Potato chips (crisps) now come in a gazillion flavors, like sour cream and onion, vinegar, honey bbq, and the healthy version, baked.
Tortilla chips also come in a wide variety of flavors, like "cool ranch" dressing. There are lots of varieties of salsas to dip them into.

Popular candy bars are:
Hershey bar - plain old American chocolate
Butterfinger - kind of like a Cadbury Flake only the flakiness is from flaked toffee.
Snickers - peanuts and caramel covered in chocolate.
Reese's peanut butter cups - Think of a very tiny tart with a chocolate shell and a filling of peanut butter.
Twizzlers - kind of a fruity licorice.
Skittles - chewy sugary fruit inside, hard candy shell outside, each about the size of a button.

Soft drinks are pretty much the same.
Coca Cola
Pepsi Cola
I am crazy for Dr. Pepper, which tastes like a Coke with cherry syrup in it.
Nehis are popular in the south. You can get grape and orange flavors.
And there's an increasing presence of Spanish sodas, like Malta Cola etc.

Rebecca Cooper
aka becs_again

Funyuns-snacks that taste like fried onion rings (sort of).
Bugles- bugle-shaped corn snacks, pretty greasy.
Twinkies-small cakes with fluffy white stuff inside.
Sunflower seeds-salted, flavors like barbecue.
Double Stuf Oreos-small chocolate cookies with thick white cream in between.
Doritos-tortilla chips, Ranch flavor, nacho cheese, chili.

Thanks so much guys! This is super useful information <3

Oh, you forgot the KitKat bars! :D

Anyway, just to add on to the list of fast food restraunts. (I'm from California, which may have an effect on what I remember best)
Taco Bell - mostly Americanized Mexican food: tacos, burritos, my favorite thing on the menu: Chalupas (basically a really big taco which uses a really thick tortilla-thing to hold everything together.
Jack in the Box - has the best curly fries
In 'n' Out - Milkshakes.... pretty much it.

I usually drink Root Beer: MUG, A&W, doesn't really matter to me.
That, or Sprite. Sprite's always good, though some people might prefer 7up.
(Those are the Lemon-Lime sodas, though they don't really taste like lemon-lime to me).

KitKats! Very important. We have them here, too, and I love them. One of my main [American] characters' girlfriend is called Kat, and he calls her KitKat.

Thanks for the continued stream of info! It's super helping.

That's a good point - what part of the States will your character be visiting? Some chains that are prevalent in certain areas will be completely unheard of in another part of the country, or two chains may be owned by the same parent company and are just branded differently in a different state. Even with store-bought snack foods, there are some things that are more common in some areas than in others. I'm from Alabama, and while we have Little Debbie brand snack cakes and Moon Pies galore, I had no idea what a Butterscotch Krimpet was when I read about it in "Maniac McGee" - then I made a trip to Boston and lo and behold, they were on the shelves at the grocery store! The mind boggles.

Also putting in my two cents for fried chicken - Popeye's and KFC (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken) are probably the most ubiquitous in North Alabama.

I don't know how big your musicians are, but you can probably find lots of good ideas in real artist's tour riders here:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/index.html

Be sure to look at Foo Fighters and Iggy Pop/The Stooges, they're the funniest.

Quick comment on the fast food listings. Sonic doesn't have fries. They have tater tots which I love. They're one of the only places that have them. Also they have burgers, hot dogs, and corn dogs. Also serve breakfast which is quite good. Better than other fast food places, in my opinion. However, Sonic is not in a lot of places. Where I am, the closest one is about 2 hours away.
But every region in the US has its own fast food places. They also have their own chain restaurants. They also sometimes have their own junk food brands so if you're looking for super accuracy then you need to make sure that the brands match up if you're going to be that specific. Either that or go with big name brands.
Personally if we're talking potato chips I prefer Pringles because they come in a tube, they're really not as greasy, you can take out as many as you want, and then put the cap back on. No mess. The Cape Cod kettle cooked chips (potato chips again) are also pretty good. Nice and crunchy but they're too hard for some people.
I don't drink soda (or pop, etc, depending on region) but if I was going to, I prefer the unusual ones you can get at ethnic stores and grocery stores. Jarritos (Mexican type) come in lots of fun flavors like lime, jamaica, and tamarind. I also like Ramune, a Japanese soda that tastes like a combination of Dr. Pepper and bubble gum (to me anyway). But maybe I'm just weird that way.
For takeout restaurant type food, you can't go wrong with Chinese takeout. For a little more fun and something you can fake a little easier, they could go to an actual drive in. Sonic is a sort of drive in/fast food restaurant. They have a drive thru but a car hop brings out the food. For a real drive in, you just park and a car hop does all the running for you. There aren't a lot of drive ins but there are some scattered around the US. They all tend to have the same thing. Soda, milkshakes, burgers, fries, onion rings, hot dogs, corndogs plus other random things. Okay now I'm hungry.

You can't forget ice cream!

Carvel, Dairy Queen, Baskin-Robbins, and Ben and Jerry's are, from what I know, national ice cream parlor chains (Dairy Queen does serve burgers and fries too). A lot of fast food joints also have ice cream on the menu though it would be limited. However every town/city will most likely have a local ice cream parlor that the locals prefer. Again it all comes down to location.

well, chips ways theres lays and doritos
chocolate: hershesy is a big one that i am not all that particularly fond of
ummm i dont really know what else to put here

As someone else pointed out, there are different fast food joints in different states (unless you stick with the biggies, McD, BK, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut). Same thing with junk food. For example, until I was twelve I lived in Kansas City, Missouri. The potato chips we ate in our house were called "Guy's." We moved to Pennsylvania and they didn't have "Guy's" potato chips...anywhere. So, I'd stick with the big one's on that too...

Chips:
Frito Lay (Ruffle's, Lays, Doritos, Munchos) http://www.fritolay.com/our-snacks/full-list-of-brands.html

Candy:
Hershey's brand http://www.hersheys.com/products/?ICID=HER1006
Mars http://www.mars.com/global/Global+brands.htm

Soda:
Pepsi
Coke
Dr. Pepper
Sunkist
RC Cola
Nehi soda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehi
Mt. Dew

Snack Cakes:
These are things you may find in a gas station
Little Debbie brand http://www.littledebbie.com/products/cakes_brownies.asp
Hostess brand http://www.hostesscakes.com/

If your characters are old enough to drink beer, then that's another regional issue. So, say your band is playing in Pittsburgh, PA and decide to have a cheap, local beer then they'd drink Iron City beer. However, if they're in the Philadelphia region, they might have Yuengling Lager (which the locals refer to as 'a Lager') or Rolling Rock (which is a national beer but made in Latrobe, PA).

So you may want to research this a bit further for your cities if it makes sense to the story.

Justice
Finished "The Blame Bearer"

Chick-Fil-A is a pretty popular fast food restaurant. They specialize in grilled chicken, so they've got sandwiches, nuggets, strips, that kind of thing. They also have waffle fries, which are delicious. They're usually found in the Southern US, but I think they're expanding more and more. In North Carolina, there's a regional chicken chain called Bojangles that has spicy french fries and the best biscuits in the world.

The previously mentioned Sonic has both tater tots and fries, and between 2 and 4 PM, they have a Happy Hour, when you can get certain drinks (sodas, slushes, and fun things like limeade and a blue tangy drink they call Ocean Water) for half off.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.--Alexander the Great

Oh! Oh! Don't forget fruit pies! (The above Little Debbie comment reminded me of that)

They're not actually like real fruit pies, but a junk food/snack version, that comes in a waxed-paper package. They're a single serving glazed pastry shell about the size of your hand, with filling inside - usually you can get cherry, apple, lemon and chocolate. They're very common, at least in the Midwest where I'm from, at convenience stores, truck stops, gas stations, etc. They're not flaky or light or anything - very heavy - and completely horrible for you . I love them. xD

"The minstrel boy to the war is gone..."

Sonic has the best onion rings. And limeaids. All Sonics that I know are of the car-hop type. You pull in to a parking stall, give your order to a little tinny box/speaker thing, and pretty soon a teenager comes out with your order.

And hamburgers come in different varieties. Hamburger, cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger, doubles, triples, quarter pounders, etc. (BTW, your character might be surprised that there is no beetroot on our burgers.)

Two more chains that are good, but regional are Village Inn - a sit-down joint that is mostly in the southwest, and Culver's, a place where you can get all the burger things, and some pretty good ice cream, mostly in the upper midwest.

Oh, and Taco Bell (faux mexican food). And Pizza Hut (pizza's, duh).

Write 'til you get there!

I almost forgot, when it comes to regular candy, the season can affect what is available. Cadbury Eggs (amazing!) are only available around Easter time. Candy hearts are for Valentine's Day. The big candy holidays are Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas and the candy will reflect the holiday.

Probably really obvious and not very important but I thought I'd throw it out anyways.

Definitely Twinkies. and Ding Dongs (both Hostess products as described by somebody above sorry for not quoting the name it's pre-coffee and I'm in a nanohaze...)

If you want to go really picky on the snacks (as it seems that celebrities want specific things and have it put into their contracts over here all the time- such as I forget who it was but one famous band once specified that they wanted all the brown M&M's taken out before they were given them backstage.

For something quirky, you could go with what I call 'junk cereal'. Heavily sugared, like Lucky Charms (could say that one type of marshmallow had to be taken out) or Cap'n Crunch. Something like that.

Then there' s the whole Dorito/Frito/Cheetos debate...

"When your back's against the wall,
that's when you show no fear at all,
and when you're running out of time,
that's when you hitch your star to mine"~Keane

some fast food joints that didn't get listed in this thread.

friendly's- ice cream parlor similar to dairy queen, mostly found on the east coast and florida
carl's jr.- west coast chain, owns hardees
wendy's- the #3 national chain, famous for square hamburger patties
in 'n' out- mostly a ca. chain, best burgers around
whataburger- southern hamburger chain
papa john's- national pizza joint, founder is an ex-pizza hut worker
domino's- national pizza joint, cheaper than pizza hut
steak and shake- southern and midwest joint that serves what it says
rubio's- only in san diego area, but has the best fish tacos

Magical Bride Strawberry Kelsey: Magical Girl Parody at it's sweetest.

Strands Recovered: 15/20
Monsters Destroyed: 3

As an American living in England, I can assure you, this is blatantly untrue. Your character will most likely be disappointed by the lack of prawn cocktail, roast chicken, and sweet thai chili chips. Pringles have the most variety, but nothing approaching what you find in England (I've been told that New Zealand* is comparable?). I don't remember ever seeing meat flavors back home, but there may be one or two.

Also note that KFC is somewhat classier in America than abroad. Not, you know, a lot, you're still eating a bucket full of chicken. But it might come with mashed potatoes and corn (sweet corn) and maybe a biscuit (roll). And there may be plastic utensils available. At least where I'm from (New England) it was generally a step up from McDonalds and Burger King. You do still get greasy chicken places that are like the international KFCs; I don't know any big chains, but there'd be lots of smaller ones with totally awesome names like "Sir Chick-A-Lot" which I just made up, but no doubt someone will post in five minutes and tell me that's a huge chain where they live.

Um, again, assuming you have the same sweets as in England - Milky Ways have caramel in them, so they're like Mars Bars (only I prefer Mars - better caramel?), and the ones without are Three Musketeers.

Coke tastes ever-so-slightly differently. People assure you that you are just imagining the taste of the corn syrup and that there is no detectable difference, but I swear the first coke I have on returning to the States is always a shock.

The greatest cookie in America is, of course, the Double Stuf Oreo (like a normal Oreo, only with twice as much of the creme) and should be eaten by the box; however, the Oreo cookie company is somewhat pretentious and insists that you always split, eat the creme, then dip the cookie in milk, which is not how I like them. :-(

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are amazing, and there is no wrong way to eat a Reese's. :-)

Also, Reese's Pieces, which are peanut butter candies...like M&Ms but without the chocolate? More addictive than they sound.

Friendly's is a big chain restaurant where you get sit down meals...comparable to a Pizza Hut in general classiness, but you generally get chicken fingers, burgers or...um...I'm not sure, salads? Anyway, the real reason to go to Friendly's is for the ice creams, because they have amazing dessert sundaes. I would order the Cone Head Sundae, which is vanilla ice cream in an awesome tall silver dish, a smilie face made out of Reese's Pieces, and a clown-hat from an ice cream cone dipped in hot fudge and more Pieces mixed into the ice cream at the bottom. It's off the children's menu, but I don't care! :-D

Root beer is the greatest drink in the world. The stuff I've found in England doesn't ever taste right. We've speculated it's either unsweetened, insufficiently sweetened, or uses absolutely the wrong sweetener. It is a bit of an acquired taste, though, I suppose. My favorite is IBC which comes in glass bottles that look like beer (shorter, fatter, with no label). IBC also makes cream soda which is also beyond delicious. Clear bottles, so it looks like light beer, haha.

Oh, there's also wintergreen mints. Not a junk food, just, you know, mints, tictacs, lifesavers - I think a flavor of Listerine, too. We still get the normal Peppermint and Spearmint flavors as well, but for some reason Wintergreen is always a shock to people from abroad. I haven't seen it anywhere in Europe that I didn't bring it myself. Everyone I've offered it to says they taste like the dentist, but I never thought so, no more than mint normally does, anyway. However, Wintergreen Lifesavers make glowing sparks if you bite down on them in the dark.

Lots of take-out pizza places. They'll generally also serve, uh, long sandwiches, variously called subs (fairly universal), grinders (Massachusetts only?), hoagies (the dumb part of the country, j/k), and other even more incomprehensible terms. As a rule, whatever word is used in a particular region will sound normal to the locals, while all other options will sound REALLY stupid to them - so walking into a MA pizza place and asking for a hoagie will get you weird looks, and going anywhere else and asking for a grinder may get you thrown out. Also, I'm sure I'm spelling hoagie wrong.

You tend not to get fish-and-chips places. They exist, but aren't very common. Growing up, we got fish-and-chips from the local pizza parlor, but apparently this is not normal. I don't know what other people do when they want greasy take-out fish-n-chips. :-(

Also, kebab places and Indian take-out are rare (but by no means unheard of). Chinese food is the official unofficial ethnic food of America. No prawn crackers - the menus are actually quite different, though a lot of the standards are there, like Sweet and Sour chicken. Also, you get duck sauce (which is hard to describe, but can be like the sauce in S&S chicken only more...applesauce consistency? and not always as sweet?) which varies from restaurant to restaurant - this is generally put on the white rice, chicken fingers, teriyaki beef-on-a-stick, or pork that you ordered. There are always fortune cookies.

Easy Mac. Well, any form of Kraft Mac-and-Cheese. If you haven't had Kraft, you're fooling yourself about ever having eaten Mac-and-Cheese. We do not call it macaroni cheese. Also, Spaghettio's are the only canned pasta you ever need.

Um, other great sweets: Cow Tails (I can't describe a Cow Tail, I have absolutely given up), Air Heads, Sweedish Fish (the original red, and the multi-colored multi-sea-life ones are good, not the multi-color fish), Twinkies, Swiss Cake Rolls. For cereals, you have an impressive array of things containing marshmallows (Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, Alpha Bits...), things containing chocolate (Coco Puffs, Coco Crispies, Coco Pebbles), and things that defy description (Apple Jacks, Cap'n Crunch).

Gah, that's about all I can handle before I start getting homesick! Also, note that lemonade is not a soda (sweet lemon juice, basically) and apple cider is non-alcoholic unless otherwise specified (it's a sort of very thick apple juice, distinct from the standard kind).

*Gosh, according to my spell check, New Zealand doesn't exist! Tough break there.

Title: Weirdness Magnet
Pages: 200
Semicolons: 175
Nights spent dreaming of story: 7
Geek references>plot?
Capes/Badass longcoats: 6
Status: One character just stormed out, claiming that alien rats in the computers are absurd.

If you want something regional, there's Culver's in the Upper Midwest. So if they're going through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc, that would be a good place to stop by, they have the usual burgers, along with chicken or fish sandwiches. But they also have more traditional meals, like beef pot roast or a shrimp dinner. There's soup and plenty of different kinds of salad. But they're famous (at least around here) for their frozen custard. Sort of like ice cream, but with a really smooth texture. There's chocolate and vanilla every day, plus a flavor of the day. One of my favorite places to eat for "fast food" and I didn't see it on here, so I thought it should me mentioned.
Keep in mind, some things that are down there aren't very popular up here, like vegemite. I chose New Zealand for a country research project in fourth grade because I was there for a wedding of a family friend while we were supposed to be working on the project. For something to do at my booth, people could try vegemite and almost everyone didn't like it. It wouldn't be an easy thing to find in a store here if your characters go looking for it, we ended up bring some back with us to the states because my mom had never seen it before and didn't think we would be able to find it.

Oh, wow, this is insanely cool! Thanks so much for all your help, guys! This is totally awesome.

Once they hit the road, I'm gonna get some serious word count mileage out of this stuff xD Cheers!

As for where they're gonna be, they're going all over. It's a three month tour we're they'll hit most, if not all, states. So I'll definitely put the region-specific stuff to use!

You're all amazing <3

Also, I'm not surprised we don't exist - most people seem to think of us as Middle Earth still :)

And thanks for the heads up about Vegemite, I'd forgotten it wouldn't be in the States! I'll definitely have to have them going for a hunt.

OH! And another question - does hokey pokey ice cream exist in the US? Like, vanilla ice cream with hokey pokey pieces?

If your characters drive through Ohio they can visit Wendys. They've got restaurants pretty much all over. I double checked Cleveland and Columbus since they're the two biggest cities I can think of and might be possible locations for the band to stop at. Basically Wendys sells burgers and fries. They've got excellent chili and chicken sandwiches as well. (Personal favorite happens to be the spicy chicken sandwich.)

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." - Jack London

~Brittany

I had to look up hokey pokey - where I'm from we call it 'fairy food' but according to Wikipedia that's regional slang.

I have never seen ice cream with this stuff in it, sadly. :( In fact, now that I think of it, I don't see it very much anyways, except sometimes around Christmas in the grocery store. My grandma makes awesome fairy food, though!

A very popular ice cream flavor here is chocolate-chip cookie dough - vanilla with cookie dough chunks in it. ^^

"The minstrel boy to the war is gone..."

A note on Vegemite: If you want to have your character really jones for it, and request it from a roadie type person or a venue, it *is* possible to find in some small shops that have a specialty international section, though probably not everywhere. It tends to run between $5 and $8 for a small to medium sized jar, which at least to me seems steep, but probably a small price to pay for a taste of home. I know I've seen a tiny jar of Marmite at Safeway (a grocery store chain), but though they're similar products I imagine one would be able to tell the difference. Also, stock varies. Best bet would probably be a Whole Foods (upscale fancy grocery store chain, but again, stock varies), or something with "international market" advertised on the building (unless by "international market" it means "middle eastern", which would mean tasty curries and halva and fun stuff like that but probably not vegemite).

on another note, there are some really cool concert venues in the states! If the tour goes through Colorado, you might consider having them play at Red Rocks Amphitheater ( http://www.redrocksonline.com/ ).... and experience the effects of high altitude! Also in Colorado is the Pepsi Center.

Northern California Fast Food:
In and Out
Wendy's
Panda Express (Chinese takeout)
Arby's (roast beef sandwiches)
Subway (deli sandwiches)
Chipotle's (big burritos)
Taco Bell
Mrs. Fields Cookies: They sell cookies, soda, lemonade, sometimes soft pretzels and soft-serve ice cream
Mr. Pretzel
Cinnabon
Jamba Juice: smoothies, pretzels, other healthy-ish food

A bit about San Francisco:
There literally are Starbucks's across the street from each other. You don't have to walk more than a block to find a coffee shop.
Which Craft is a common sandwich place
There is all kinds of ethnic food around SF, mostly focusing on Asian and Indian.
Mixed Greens is a salad place thats all around SF
San Francisco Soup Company
A lot of different sushi places, and sushi is often available at buffets and such too.

Local Junk Food:
It's-It Vanilla chocolate or mint ice cream sandwiches between two oatmeal cookies and dipped in chocolate. They're awesome, and available in a lot of corner store Ice cream displays.
Drumsticks: Ice cream cone dipped in chocolate and covered in peanuts.
Nutter Butters: peanut butter sandwich cookies. Amazing dipped in milk.
Goldfish Crackers: cheesy cracker things that are amazing. They come in a couple different flavors, but I like original the best.
Ritz crackers: I have no idea why these are so good, but they are. Great with peanut butter, and in gas stations you can buy little bags of miniature crackers sandwiched with peanut butter or cheese.

Dude! In the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho) we call that Sea Foam. Unfortunately, it doesn't come in ice cream. But you can buy it at higher end candy stores (ie, not at the grocery store), beat the living cr*p out of it and mix it into your ice cream. If you go to ice cream mixers (ice cream parlors where they mix your ice cream custom, instead of digging it out of tubs made in factories) they have jars of candy that they'll mix into the ice cream (along with sprinkles, fruits, cinnamon, peanut butter, and other things). I've never seen Sea Foam at a mixer (though I've only been going to one favorite mixer for years) but if you're characters were having a craving and bought some from a candy store, the mixer people would probably add it in for them (maybe for a song :D ).

Edit: Oh! And if your characters are in the Pacific Northwest (California too maybe) they could get Bubble Tea! It's cold tea, milk tea, smoothies or milkshakes (not made from ice-cream) with tapioca balls or cubes added in. The tops of the cups are plastic (with pictures or phrases) laminated onto the cup rim. They give you big, colorful straws to drink it with (you puncture the plastic top with them).

Also: Malts! Yum. Most places don't sell them anymore but Dairy Queen, Baskin Robins, and Sonics do. Locally owned ice-cream parlors and mixers make them too. They're (not sure if Malts are a American thing, or if they're made in other countries too) milkshakes with malt powder mixed in. So good.

As for chips, I like Kettle brand the best. They're thicker than most other brands. Salt and Vinegar is the best.

Krispy Kreams are a donuts brand on the East coast. They're apparently really good if you get them fresh and warm. We don't really have them on the West coast. My favorite donuts are Spud Nuts. They used to be all over the Pacific Northwest but they've fallen out of favor. They're made with potato flour and taste really good, very fluffy.

Um...no. Krispy Kreme is a dying chain, and way too rich for most of us who aren't from New York or the Deep South. On the East Coast, if you character wants donuts, she'll go to Dunkin'. If your character wants "just plain coffee," she'll go to Dunkin'.

i'm in alabama as well, & thought i'd throw out a couple of things i haven't seen listed yet:

Krystal, http://www.krystal.com/, is a regional fast food chain specializing in mini burgers, they are 24/7 so very handy to grab after the club, plus they are especially good when you're drunk.

Waffle House, http://www.wafflehouse.com/welcome/, this is a sit-down restaurant & also 24/7. they are all over, especially along the interstates so popular with people on the road. specialize in waffles & hasbrowns, but they also have burgers, chili, etc.

hope that helps a little:~)

The San Francisco area also has High Tech Burrito. They sell burritos, as the name might imply.

The equivalent here in Colorado where I live now is Chipotle. The burritos there are gigantic, and pretty spicy.

There's also gas station food. Some gas stations have rather expansive food stores. Sometimes they'll sell warm chicken sandwiches or cheeseburgers, hot dogs, or even nachos. The nacho cheese is a shade of yellow you will never find in nature, and is delicious in a 'it will kill you' sort of way. Places with those things will also probably have a coffee machine and a place to get incredibly large cups of root beer or some such soda.

Whoa, so much info! You guys are all totally amazing! Thank you so much!

... I think maybe I could just write 35000 words on food and then I'll be done xDDDDDD <3

But seriously, this is solid stuff. I can't wait to work some of it in!

Just had to say - There's a big chain of ice cream stores that work this way, Cold Stone Creamery, which is mind-bogglingly amazing. I don't know if the smaller ones are better or more authentic than the big chain, but it'll beat the pants off most regular ice cream places. Also, they sing when you put money in the tip jar. :-)

Title: Weirdness Magnet
Pages: 200
Semicolons: 175
Nights spent dreaming of story: 7
Geek references>plot?
Capes/Badass longcoats: 6
Status: One character just stormed out, claiming that alien rats in the computers are absurd.