Now that I’m entering early-onset middle age, I’m trying to eat healthier. Which is to say, I’m trying to eat less of the bad stuff, while still eating zero of the good stuff. Which is to say, I’ll feel more guilty while eating boxes upon boxes of Oreos and I’ll start to look at pictures of broccoli in magazines. My incredible metabolism got me through my first thirty-some-odd years, a curse and a blessing (in that order) because though my scrawny body frame relegated me to the comic relief in everyone else’s romantic dramas, I was still given the chance to eat my feelings while not being invited to parties. Health is particularly hard to achieve when you live in the South, where, if you’re getting less than 50 cents in change back from any transaction, they give it to you in sliced pats of butter. The only trouble is that, as I’m planning my own food-ture (yes!), keeping an eye on serving size and steering clear of fast food, I’m also finding myself tasked with opening up my son’s palette to foods that aren’t PB&J or grilled cheese. Sam’s been a picky eater since he’s known how to use his hands for throwing, but now that he’s 6, I’ve been trying to get him into foods that “kids who are normals” like to eat. By framing my sentences in ways like, “Dad likes Wendy’s cheeseburgers, but I think you’ll like McDonald’s cheeseburgers,” I’m subtly getting him to believe this is a fact, a conditioned individuality that will serve him well should he ever work in an office setting. It’s taken me months, but just the other day, I finally heard him say the words I longed to hear: “Dad, I think I want to try a cheeseburger today.” We were in the car and halfway there before I realized this was really happening. An ominous tone for our outing was struck right from the start, when we came upon the site of the McDonald’s closest to our house and discovered that it had been demolished. A sign adjacent to the rubble informed us that this would soon be a new, “Green” McDonald’s. Because this is America, there are two other McDonald’s within one mile of anywhere, so I drove to the next one. As we glided down the hill and approached the next closest, non-destroyed McDonald’s, Sam noticed its green roof and exclaimed, “It’s a green McDonald’s, dad! I’ve never seen a green McDonald’s before.” Not wanting to get into an intellectual discussion about the environment at a time when my dream of Sam eating horribly processed meat was about to be fulfilled, I let him have his moment. I pulled to the first drive-thru window, my own excitement building pathetically. The following is a nearly-exact transcript of the ordering process, which could easily be titled something like The Darkest Day (For America) (Drive-Thru Category): EXT. MCDONALD’S DRIVE THRU – DAY TEENAGER: (over loudspeaker) Hi, welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order? ME: Yeah, hi, I’m going to get two plain cheeseburgers, and my son is going to get a plain cheeseburger Happy Meal. For the Happy Meal, could I get apple slices instead of fries? TEENAGER: We don’t have apple slices. ME: What do you have fruit-wise? TEENAGER: (long pause) Cookies. SAM: Cookies! ME: That’s not a fruit. Oranges, maybe? TEENAGER: We only have apple slices. ME: But you don’t have those. TEENAGER: (long pause) No. ME: Well, fine then, I guess. Do you have apple juice? TEENAGER: No. ME: What are my options there? TEENAGER: We have orange juice or soda or milk. ME: I’ll take milk. TEENAGER: Chocolate or vanilla? ME: (hand thing) Milk? WOMAN’S VOICE: (authoritative, managerial) PLEASE PULL TO THE NEXT ORDER SCREEN. [I dutifully pull to the second order screen.] WOMAN’S VOICE (MANAGER): Hi, welcome to McDonald’s, may I have your order please? ME: Ah, yeah. We were talking about fruits back there. I was ordering a Happy Meal, but wanted a fruit in place of the fries. MANAGER: Well, the Happy Meals come with apple slices as well. ME: (hesitates) Yeah. Yeah, I was going to get apple slices--- MANAGER: We don’t have apple slices. ME: Why did you—yeah, I—that’s what the guy at the other screen said. We were in the middle of talking about alternate fruits when you— MANAGER: (Eureka!) You could get fries! ME: I know. I was looking for a workaround for fries, like whatever fruit you have. MANAGER: Like a cookie? [Horn honks behind me.] ME: What? SAM: Cookie! MANAGER: We have cookies. SAM: Cookeeees! ME: Yeah, I mean, if that’s all you got, yeah, a cookie. MANAGER: Well, we also have a parfait available. ME: Well, what does that entail? MANAGER: It’s a yogurt that has strawberries and blueberries mixed in. ME: (to Sam) Do you want yogurt with strawberries and blueberries mixed in? SAM: Um… MANAGER: (interrupts) We are sold out of parfaits today. [Horn honks behind me.] ME: (looking back to other cars) Is there like, a list maybe…of what you do have? MANAGER: Will that be everything? ME: (looking at the order accuracy window and seeing nothing) Have we even started? There’s nothing on the screen here. MANAGER: So that’s one Happy Meal with no apple slices and what would you like to drink with that. ME: Milk. But me and the other guy covered that part already. MANAGER: Other guy? ME: Yeah, I was in the middle of ordering at the first thing, and you told me to pull forward to this one. MANAGER: No, sir, I did not. ME: (no reason to lie to her) All right, so let’s start over. (pause) I was ordering two plain cheeseburgers for me, and then a plain cheeseburger Happy Meal for my son. Getting a milk for his drink. MANAGER: Chocolate or vanilla? ME: Just…milk. A regular milk. MANAGER: Cookie instead of apple slices? SAM: Cookie! ME: Cookie because there are no apple slices, sure. MANAGER: We don’t have apple slices. ME: Yeah, I’ve heard. MANAGER: That’s $5.71, please pull to the first window. [I pull the car to the first window and there’s no one there. I wait 20 seconds, until I see a guy in the second window up ahead, looking like he’s waiting for me. Figuring the manager was wrong and this was yet another superfluous first window, I pull forward to the teenager from the original incarnation of my order, money at the ready. He looks at me, puzzled, and physically recoils from the outstretched money.] TEENAGER: Sir, no! You have to pay the other window. ME: Yeah, that’s what I thought she said, but there was nobody there. TEENAGER: She’s there now. [The teenager and I both look to the first window, where the manager and the driver of the car behind me are in an argument about their total, which of course is _my_ total. The driver of the car behind me is wildly gesticulating toward me. All the cars are honking now. It sounds like early Philip Glass. Nobody knows the horror that has taken place between the two order screens and two windows in the last three and a half minutes. To them, I am the one with the problem. This is my fault.] ME: (to Sam) What do you think about ice cream? SAM: Yes! [Car peels out in a manly way.]
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 14:55:39 +0000