She Lost Her Virginity at McDonalds
My wife Jody had never been to McDonald's until today. She is
fifty-three years old.
We had seen Supersize Me a few years ago at
Sundance and heard Morgan Spurlock, the subject and filmmaker, during a Q
& A after the film. He talked about how much weight he had gained from
eating only McDonald's offerings three times a day for thirty days straight,
how he developed abnormal liver function tests, how his glucose metabolism
became deranged, and about the effects of his experiment on his
girlfriend.
It was in this mindset that we parked our Prius in the
restaurant’s (I use that word very loosely) parking lot. The other cars were
pickups, SUV’s and one Hummer. I felt ecologically OOP*. The reason we were
even eating at the Golden Arches was my six-year old grandson Jonah. We
planned to take him out for lunch and made the mistake of asking him where
he wanted to go.
His current obsession is the Titanic. He had seen a
documentary on the search for the sunken treasure, had a picture book on the
boat and its fateful maiden voyage, and had put together a three dimensional
model of the ship. When we picked Jonah up we asked where he wanted to go
for lunch.
“McDonald’s,” he said without hesitation.
“You like
the Happy Meal?” Jody asked.
“Yup, chicken nuggets, fries, and
lemonade.”
There it was without question. No reason to do battle with
him about lunch.
We walked in and ordered. A Happy Meal with lemonade
for Jonah, Quarter Pounder meal for Jody, and a Big Mac meal for me, both
with sixteen ounces of coke. In less than a minute our order was
up.
“That was fast.” Jody said. “They don’t even cook it.”
I
flashed back on a book I had once read about the organizational and
marketing skills of Arthur Ray Kroc, the founder of the McDonald’s. I could
not recall it but had the distinct sense that the man was a genius on some
level and that he and his wife died with a significant estate. She had
outlived him by a few years and was worth at least $1.91 billion dollars at
her death. I also recalled that she had founded and funded The Joan B. Kroc
Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame and The Joan B Kroc
Institute for Peace and Justice Studies at the University of San Diego. With
that sort of social commitment how bad could a Big Mac be for
you?
We found out quickly. McDonald’s now lists typical contents of
their products on the packaging of everything they pass across the counter
to its customers. The spreadsheet with more information than you want to
know is:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/app
Jody and I each consumed over 1,000 calories in less
than ten minutes and were appalled. It was not tasty.
“If I’m gonna
eat that many calories I sure as hell am going to enjoy it,” Jody said
thinking of Hires, a favorite burger haunt from her childhood.
Her
comment took me back to our last trip to Paris (October 2007). Our rented
apartment was a block from a McDonald’s and just across from Le Jardin De
Luxembourg. We walked by it every day and every day, no matter the time, people
were eating McDonald’s fare. Who were they? French? Tourists? Students (since it
was strategically located near the Sorbonne)?
Jody found out soon
enough a few days later when some foreigners (or perhaps even Parisians)
asked her where McDonald’s was located. She was dressed, as usual, to the
nine’s, and had been shopping by herself.
Without a moment’s hesitation
she replied with one of the French phrases she uses several times a day,
“Tout droit.”
“Thank you,” they said perhaps realizing she was not
French. She was both thrilled (at being asked directions on the streets of
Paris) and mortified (at not being considered French).
I returned
from my reverie to Mc-reality.
Jonah was having a totally good time
with his McNuggets, fries and lemonade and was off to the indoor playground.
As we looked at each other with incredulity (the sacrifices grandparents
make for their grandchildren) I recalled that Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits
had written a song about McDonald’s entitled Boom Like That. The
lyrics in the second verse tell where Knopfler's head was:
These
boys have got this down ought to be one of these in
every town these boys have got the touch It's clean as a whistle and
it don't cost much wham bam don't wait long, shake fries plenty of
gum How about that friendly name, heck, every little thing
gotta stay the same or my name is not Kroc, that's Kroc with a
K A crocodile is not spelt that way now It's Dog eat dog, rat eat
rat Kroc style - Boom like that
While we watched Jonah methodically
eat his Happy Meal Jody came up with a brilliant idea so that we would not
be trapped into visiting McDonald's again. On the way home she presented it
to Jonah.
“You know there were people from all over the world on the
Titanic; India, China, Thailand, France, Mexico. What we could do next time
is go eat some food like they were doing on the Titanic.”
I was
thinking of the $1.00 taco stands near Sears.
Jonah took it in and,
though not effusively interested, nodded in
acquiescence. We are hopeful it
will come to pass. Meanwhile I feel a little guilty that someone from my
actual bloodline forced Jody to eat at McDonald’s.
After we
returned Jonah to his mom we stopped and bought some Peanut M & M’s to get
the bland taste out of our mouths.
