While it’s no news to anyone who has eyes in their head that fast food reality barely ever lives up to those glistening tomatoes, perky lettuce and perfectly chargrilled patties in the ads, what if you simply asked for your food to be remade in its commercial image? Either you’d get a lot of laughing in your face, or heck, maybe you could convince someone to try a little bit harder just for you.

In the below video, one man makes it his mission (with a hidden camera, natch, because the only way to know if someone really wants to do something for you is to keep the unaware that they’re being filmed either way) to see if fast food workers will redo his order to match up more closely with web ads for each item.

Of course, most of his orders are sadly lacking in prettiness, but he does manage to convince some kindhearted employees to redo his food with some more inspiring success.

Though we can’t imagine all restaurants requiring workers to keep with this level of advertised perfection, it does beg the question — Why are we all so used to the fact that often, we’re not getting what companies are selling? I don’t have an answer, it just makes me kind of sad.

Anyway, while we can all probably expect unpretty food, it never hurts to ask. As one worker laughs, “I’ve never heard that before.”

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