In October, after a road trip to South Dakota, by way of Wyoming, I declared I was done with McDonald’s. I had had my last ever Two Cheeseburger meal with Coke.
My reasons were more health-conscious decisions than political. I thought it a good thing to wash my hands of this sort of fast food.
It was good and it was permanent. Forever. Done.
It’s not that I eat McDonald’s very often. I will do the occasional fries and a Coke or order off the dollar menu when I’m running errands–no more than once a month. And, I’m a huge fan of their iced coffee in the summer. Light and sweet.
I’m going to side note here for just a tick. It’s a McDonald’s story.
When I was at school in London in 2003, a friend of mine was telling us over lunch in the refectory that her economics professor started their first class with a question for the students. ”What are some patents you can think of that came out of America that have had a global impact?” A hand shot up immediately from the back, a girl in our dorm from Czech Republic.
“Yes, go ahead,” the professor said.
“Mac-Donalds,” she remarked in a British-English accent and the class roared with laughter. Snark, snark.
“How about the light bulb, idiot?” my friend hurled back at her.
I think they got into a fist fight later on in the term over who was standing in line to use the payphone first. It was hate at first breath for those two. There were political and social issues in that school – quite a few now that I look back on it. The school was a mash-up of European, British and American students mostly living together in tiny rooms just as things were getting extremely tense in Iraq and American involvement and war was imminent.
I digress, as I told you I would.
That day in Gillette, Wyoming, I decided I was over McDonald’s – as it were, Mac-Donalds.
I did really well for three months.
And then, while at the airport in Hartford in January with C, after being seen off by my parents who had turned around to leave once we went through security, a lump rose in my throat like no other and I knew I couldn’t keep it down.
I burst into tears and had to excuse myself and go to the restroom. I hate leaving home. Every single time. I haven’t lived at home since I was 18, but there’s something so comfortable about my childhood and my parents and my cat, Miles Glitter Kitty, that I just sometimes feel like I need to hold on.
When I came back, C was sitting in a white wooden rocker (they have those at Bradley International) and had saved the one next to his for me.
“What can I do to make it better?” he said in his normal, calm demeanor.
I sniffled. ”Egg McMuffin, please.”
And that was that. I didn’t shed another tear and we were back in Mile High by noon.
How do you self-soothe?
