America has been called the fast food nation - not a compliment, by the way.

Drive-through diets shape the country - and the shape is, all too often, super-sized.

But anatomical and health considerations aside, it seems to me one aspect of the fast food mentality has come to apply, not just to burgers, but to all of life.

Picture in your mind a fast food menu. There’s Combo A and Combo B; Combos 1 and 2 and 3.

Picture in your mind a typical day’s menu. “Opportunities” and responsibilities tend to arrive in combination - Combo A and Combo B; Combos 1 and 2 and 3.

One day last week, I went to three great events - the Junior Service League Attic Sale preview, Hills and Dales art lecture on Lamar Dodd and a LaGrange High football game - all within a four-hour span. It was my choice, of course. I looked at life’s menu and chose the biggest combination. “Super size it,” I said, biting off more than a reasonable person can chew.

The result? Well, I enjoyed myself, but really couldn’t fully experience any of the events. Skimming the surface is an inevitable byproduct of the fast food approach to life.

The news of the day often is similarly super-sized - and just as shallow. Events and occurrences overlap in mind-blowing combinations.

A serious health care reform debate gets drowned out by the latest Letterman scandal. Want fries with that?

A major calamity gets mentioned in the same breath as the latest twitter from a minor celebrity. Cheeseburger or plain?

A minor weather event is hyped breathlessly alongside accounts of global terror threats. Mustard, ketchup and onions?

The combinations are relentless - and strange.

Wednesday, the Associated Press noted its top two video postings on the LDN web site: the debate over the war in Afghanistan and Tom Delay’s withdrawal from Dancing with the Stars.

The day before, the swine flu vaccine controversy had been a close second to Elizabeth Taylor’s heart procedure.

(To simplify things, let’s send Delay to Afghanistan instead of more troops and ask Liz to volunteer, magnanimously and with violet-hued eyes wide open, as a “guinea pig” in the swine flu vaccine tests. Why not? She’s going to be in the hospital anyway.)

Yes, life in combination tends to get weird. Sometimes, even bizarre.

Science fiction writer David Gerrold reminds us that’s not all bad.

“Of course, life is bizarre,” he said. “The more bizarre it gets, the more interesting it is. The only way to approach it is to make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the show.”

That got my attention. I’m a serious fan of popcorn.

And I usually enjoy the show.

But sometimes - OK, most of the time - I just can’t bring myself to care about Jon and Kate and their eight. It drives me McCrazy that so many “consumers” of news know more about Mel Gibson’s DUI (Expunged!) than something really important, like when Bobby Bowden will retire.

In a brilliant opinion piece set for publication in our Weekend edition, columnist Kathleen Parker argues that social networking media like “Twitter” tend to trivialize the serious.

Hard to disagree with that. Of course, they do. That’s the whole point.

But, in a real sense, most of life gets trivialized and not just by the media, new or old. Glorifying the trivial is our national obsession. The “big question” is no longer “Who am I and why am I here?” It’s “How many mini burgers is too many?”

Blame our short attention spans, intellectual laziness, lack of perspective, preoccupation with celebrities and what seems a national eagerness to ignore, gloss over and/or “move on.”

We want to know and understand, but not if we have to work at it. Why should we when we can pick up our information - like our food - in a blurb, soundbyte or blog, a convenient, throwaway package, not much thought or effort required.

Think of it as the “Happy Meal” approach to life.

Have it your way. But don’t be surprised if the toy breaks before you get home.

Andrea Lovejoy can be contacted at alovejoy@lagrangenews.com