Me And McDonald’s – A Love Affair

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, going to McDonald’s was a treat. My brother and I learned that McDonald’s wasn’t a place you asked to go to. It didn’t work that way in our house. Mom and Dad decided when we went there – and we were ecstatic whenever this occasion occurred.

This was before the advent of the ubiquitous McDonald’s Playplace – at least in Canada anyway. We were just excited to eat french fries, drink pop and if we were extra lucky there’d be a find-a-word on our tray’s paper place mat.

I celebrated one of my birthday’s at McDonald’s – in a specially roped-off area. After our meal, my little friends and I were treated to a tour of the kitchen where we got to see the employed teenagers drop frozen potato-esque sticks into boiling grease.

***************************************************************************
Still not a subscriber to Pencils and Popcans? Why the heck not — it’s free!
***************************************************************************

I remember my very first Big Mac with clarity. Up until that point in time, it was a hamburger, no pickle, cut in half along with a shared small fry and drink divvied up between my brother and me. But this particular day changed all that. My brother and I were being babysat by friends of my grandparents.

First we went swimming in their friend’s pool – my brother in his underwear and me in old swim trunks the lady found in her son’s closet. I wore them like a halter swim suit. Then it was McDonald’s for lunch. They didn’t even ask what I wanted – just plopped a Big Mac in front of me. I took a messy bite – and have never looked back since.

Soon, Playplaces started popping up south of our border. We saw commercials for these heavens on earth on tv and begged our parents to take us to the U.S. so we could see for ourselves.

As luck would have it, my mother had a cousin who lived in Detroit and as a family, we’d visit her once or twice a year. McDonald’s soon became part of the equation whenever we would stop in for a visit. While my mother caught up with family gossip, my father would schlep the two of us by foot the three blocks to the nearest McDonald’s. On the way, we’d pass burned-out houses and rusted, old cars on cinder blocks. My father would warn us not to make eye contact with anybody. 

The awaiting Playplace was just as amazing as the commercials implied. It was outdoors on a rectangle of astroturf and there were swings, and a cheeseburger merry-go-round and a hamburger-shaped climber which my brother promptly fell out of – scraping his chin to ribbons. A few years later, this McDonald’s added a ball pit to their utopia and I’d watch with barely concealed envy as the toddlers and kids under 6 would partake in this amazing but age discriminatory hoopla.

As luck would have it, a Mcdonald’s opened up within walking distance of my house right about the time I became a newly-minted teenager. This ideal hangout was the perfect meeting place for kids who were too young to drive to congregate over fries and pop. Sometimes the stars would align and we’d witness something hilarious that we would continue to talk and laugh about – even now – more than 30 years later. Like the time a clearly drunken man attempted to order his food from a closed register with no cashier present. 

These particular McDonald’s adventures usually ended when the small fry we were nursing was finished and/or the manager with the most striking bowl-shaped hair and brush in his back pocket started hinting it was time for us to skedaddle – whichever came first.

A few years later, a McDonald’s lobby was where I capped off my first ever official date. It started off with a cringe-worthy dinner at Kelsey’s where I barely ate anything for fear I would look like an idiot; moved into a movie where half-way through a girl behind me started shrieking and the ushers had to ask the masturbating man next to her to leave the theatre (and before you ask – the movie playing was the PG-rated I Love You To Death); then on to Mickey D’s. We knew one of the boys working behind the counter who presented us with two sundaes on the house. It pays to have friends in high places.

McDonald’s got me through many a road trip as a child and served me well as a teenager too. But my Mickey D love was not a youthful passing fancy. Adulthood struck suddenly and McDonald’s remained.

On my wedding day – the ceremony took place during the early part of the afternoon. And fate placed the church directly across the street from McDonald’s. The very same McDonald’s I would walk to during my pre-driving teen years. Our first meal as husband and wife was a Big Mac and fries. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

My girls came along and McDonald’s again filled a desperate need in my life. On the odd cold and rainy day, with the kids safely secured behind glass in the Playplace, I could drink my Diet Coke and read my newspaper in relative peace.

Of course, there was the odd snafu. It only took 20 years for me to discover the Playplace is less a utopia and more a putrid cesspool. There I was in my 30s, climbing inside one of the stifling and fetid plastic tubes desperately trying to reach my shrieking 3-year-old daughter who was perched on the top slide refusing to go down. I’m pretty sure I passed a skeleton on the way up – another lost soul forever trapped in the decidedly unhygienic Playplace. I definitely passed a balled up dirty diaper before I was high enough to grasp one of her chubby ankles and yank. Then I scampered back to the bottom where I could breathe again.

A year later and secretly pregnant a third time, my girls and I stopped in at the London McDonald’s. This marked the half-way point to Windsor where we were on our way to visit my parents. And there in the Playplace I ran into one of my closest friends from high school – who I had lost touch with. There in that McDonald’s, we reconnected, met each other’s families and have remained close ever since. The McDonald’s Playplace may indeed be unsanitary but never doubt its reunion magic.

Once the new baby arrived, our four hour drives to Windsor became a tad more complicated. I had to figure out how to get there with two little girls who would need to stop to pee at least twice and a little baby who would need to stop and eat at least once. Our first road trip together was an adventure into the unknown and I wasn’t sure how exactly it would play out. 

My girls eagerly looked forward to the half-way pit stop at the London McDonald’s. Once inside, I struggled to order, feed the girls, get them into the bathroom, then stash them in the Playplace while I fed and changed their little brother. An older woman working the cash register came into the lobby. She told me she had already spoken with her manager who agreed that she could help me out – if I wanted.

YES – I most certainly wanted!

So while she held and rocked the baby, I took the girls to the bathroom, then to the Playplace, then scarfed down my signature Big Mac and fries. And if you can believe it – the next three or four times we made the road trip to Windsor this saint of a woman was working and there to help me when I needed it.

Now, my kids are too big for the Playplace; they’ve outgrown their happy meals; but they’re game for a Big Mac and fries (or the six piece nuggets with fries). Every single time we head to McDonald’s, it’s a treat for all concerned. And that’s because we only go for enjoyment – never convenience. On our hectic nights – and we have a few – it’s reheated leftovers for supper. Our McDonald’s nights remain non-rushed triumphs of indulgence.

When I catch sight of those good old, consistent and comforting golden arches – a lot goes through my mind: a happy childhood, awkward teen years, family vacations, friendships past (with a few surviving into the present), a wedding and kids. McDonald’s was the place I went for a treat as a child, where I went independently as a teenager, where I go with my own kids in tow. It is a place that welcomed me as a child, ushered me into my own independence and freedom and saw me into adulthood.

It’s a place that for whatever reason always inspires my kids to relax and open up. With vinegar breath and ketchuped fingers, they breathlessly talk about school and friends and what’s going on with them. And I sit back with my Big Mac, fries and Diet Coke as they happily chatter on.

They’re too big for happy meals – but our meals at Mickey D’s are still happy ones.

After all these years – and I’m still lovin’ it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin