McDonald's is nice.
cancel that order
Standing in line at restaurants has always made me - well, pensive, I guess is the word. You only have so long in the line, after all. If you’re just sitting at a table, you get all fucking day to decide. You can send the waiter away ten times just to get you drinks and still keep deciding. And, as long as you tip well, no harm done. Oh, no. No fucking way at Mickey Dee’s.
I go to McDonald’s three times a year, max. I don’t eat meat. Every time I walk into the place, it’s immediately as though you are getting a glimpse of what Americans would look like if this were a third-world country. The smell of meat mingles with the smell of $2.50 smokes and last night’s forties, and creates what I like to call Eau De McDonalds. I hope to hell every time there’s a mentally handicapped guy (like autistic, not just from Podunk, Nowhere) working the counter, because then at least they try to be polite to you, be human-on-human. All I ask is that someone tries every one-in-ten times you go to McDonnie’s.
It takes me at least thirty seconds to adjust to the surroundings. By then, at least half the people in front of me have ordered.
What the fuck am I doing here? It’s 9 in the morning on a Sunday, and I’m high as shit! What am I going to order? I’ll order a pizza, they’ve got to have pizza. Damnit MICK DICKALDS, why don’t you just have a bean burrito or a cheese pizza or just some carrots stuck between buns? Okay, at least it’s the breakfast menu. I can just get an Egg McMuffin right? Those don’t have a floppy patty that looks like it’s anorexic on them do they?
“Hello, sir, may I help you?” The girl at the counter is wearing a Hijab. I wanted to make a joke about “Jihad vs. McWorld”, but I first considered that nobody had probably read or heard of that who was there, and also that it would also be construed as racist. She asked who was next, but my friends and I were confused because she was either blind, or just really fixated on that spot on the floor. I stumble up to the counter.
“Uh, hey, uh, can I ah get a number one meal, the ah Egg Mc…McMuffin thing, you know what I mean?”
“Anything else?” she asked to that very interesting spot.
“Uh, no, that’s good.”
She told me the ominously-low total. I fished in my back pocket for my wallet. It was there, thankfully, but there was no money inside, and my debit card was missing. I turned to Kirby who was with me.
“Uh, dude, I don’t have any money…”
“Yeah you gave it all to Andy last night…” (for my half of that weed).
“Ohhh, shit. Yeah…” I turned to the young lady at the register. “Uh, well, ah my fffreiind herrree is paying fffor mmeee…” I saw no acknowledgement that she understood the situation, but Kirby ordered anyway.
The transaction went off without a hitch, except that I wanted to stay there and Courtney wanted to leave. She had said earlier that she wanted to stay there. That’s a majority vote of three for staying.
We were walking out with our orders to-go from McDonald’s.
“I thought you knew I was joking when I said I wanted to stay in there!” said Courtney.
“No! I thought you were serious!”
“Of course not! Why would I want to stay in there? Those people are all insane!”
“I know, they’re all so fucking weird,” said Kirby laughing.
“Well, I wanted to stay. By the way, was that lady in there blind or am I just seeing things?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I didn’t notice at all,” agreed Kirby and Courtney.
“Why had I wanted to stay at McDonald’s?”, I wondered to myself. I hated the people, I hated the food, I hated everything the place stands for. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to wait to eat.
But there is something religious about a place like McDonalds or Wal Mart, isn’t there? There is a transcendence taking place when you immerse yourself among the refuse of culture. Once the shock of actually being in the nether-regions of humanity wears off, you start to wonder about your superiority. These people are at least interesting because most teenage hipsters cannot understand them, or have never attempted to. They are an enemy, but the more I stare in contempt, it becomes contemplation, and then sympathy, and- no, surely not empathy, that would mean putting myself in their places. To sit in their rusted ‘80’s pickups, to go home to air television and Busch Light. And what, again, makes that life any less productive than the average teen to young adult in our society?
Well, I had forgotten about the human zoo around me as I bore down upon the McMuffin. I had not been brave enough for a McGriddle, which apparently has pancakes, sausage, cheese, and “eggs”, all in a McDonald’s sandwich! Besides, I wouldn’t have to request no meat on the sandwich. I dug in.
Immediately I recognized that taste. The Fucking Egg McMuffin has a slab of sickly McDonald’s ham on it! If it just says “Egg McMuffin” I expect it to be an egg, a muffin and a Mc!
The “Mc”, of course, just means meat. I ate the rest of the meat, considering I had already eaten a bite.
