To my recollection, the three loudest rock concerts I’ve attended were Ted Nugent at the Electric Ballroom in Dallas (1975), Captain Beyond at Gertie’s in Dallas (1977) and Slayer at the Mohegan Sun Arena (2018).

None were as loud, though, as the recent drive-through greeter at Burger King on Colman Street in New London. I wheeled up, rolling down my window, and immediately this … this EXPLOSION of a cheery voice sandblasted the left side of my face.

“WELCOME TO BURGER KING WHERE YOU RULE! HOW CAN WE HELP YOU TODAY?”

“Amazing,” I thought. “Not only is this fellow glad to be at work, and blessed with astonishing pipes, but I scarcely had time to open the window before he smelted my ear!”

Thankfully, the Burger King is not located on a ski slope, or emergency crews would have been responding to the avalanche Colonel Foghorn triggered.

Anyway, brain ringing, I managed to say, “Just a large Diet Coke, please.”

There was a pause and then a much smaller female voice came over the speaker. “A large Diet Coke. Will that be all?”

What happened to Colonel Foghorn?!

Then it hit me: Colonel Foghorn is a recording triggered by the wheels of my vehicle as I approached the drive-through — and presumably an innovation from Corporate to ensure that customers are promptly and courteously hailed.

What happens after that? Well, anybody’s guess. I never heard from Colonel Foghorn again. After his greeting, the procedure was back in the hands of the employees, and I’m not picking on fast-food workers when I suggest that sometimes one’s orders are not as precise as one would like.

But is it possible that the Colonel Foghorn Greeting Mechanism is also in place as part of a Bigger Picture concept wherein AI algorithms are being employed and will ultimately predict your order with an uncanny degree of accuracy?

“WELCOME TO BURGER KING, RICK. IN ADDITION TO YOUR LARGE DIET COKE, WE HAVE ANTICIPATED THAT YOU WOULD LIKE A FULLY LOADED CROISSAN’WICH, TWO WHOPPERS WITH CHEESE HOLD THE ONIONS, AN EIGHT-PIECE ORDER OF GHOST-PEPPER CHICKEN FRIES, AND A BURGER KING DOG BED.”

“Why, yes!” I’ll say, because, while I wasn’t actually thinking of ordering food — and certainly not a Burger King dog bed, which I’ve come to find out is a real item from their merch link — now that Colonel Foghorn mentions it, all of this DOES sound pretty good.

I do not think this is a far-fetched scenario. Ours is a world where AI sophisticates have already altered Cormac McCarthy’s books to include punctuation; remade WHAM’s “Last Christmas” so that it sounds like Bob Dylan sang it; and changed “On the Waterfront” so that Lee J. Cobb and Marlon Brando have been replaced by Tom Holland as Spider Man and Mayim Bialik as a former “Jeopardy” host.

I’m not suggesting I’m particularly lazy, but the idea of a world where restaurants know what I want to eat before I do is in some respects comforting. I’m sure there will be some small issues to be ironed out: “Please tell Bobby Flay that I’m ALLERGIC to mushrooms, I don’t care WHAT his AI Menu Attenuator tells him.”

The future is exciting!

Well, it’s time for lunch. Not sure what I’m gonna eat, but I’ll leave that to Colonel Foghorn. And I’m wearing earplugs.