The Happy Meal Ordeal

Through my writings, we have established that I am an asshole, and I am OK with that. I can show little or no empathy for others without blinking an eye, but I do have a chink in my armor. When it comes to my son… my love is unconditional. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my son smile and making him happy. His smile melts my cold and blackened heart, which is why I can get extremely irritated when he gets disappointed. This brings me to our weekly visit to get a Happy Meal at McDonald’s…

My son is just a little guy, he’s almost three. For him, going to McDonald’s to get a Happy Meal is a treat, it makes him happy and for you parents who have a toddler… it gets them to eat which can be a daunting task. If you have ever seen the movie Falling Down (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106856/) with Michael Douglas you might know where this story is heading.

There is a scene in this movie (see below) where in the depths of a meltdown, Douglas’ character goes into a fast food restaurant and wants to order breakfast. They refuse to serve him breakfast because it is 11:33 and they stop serving breakfast at 11:30, so he decides to pull out a gun out of a duffel bag to attempt to get breakfast. After realizing he has caused panic among the other diners, he decides to order something off of the lunch menu. Upon receiving his lunch order, he notices that his burger is some miniature version of what is pictured on the menu and rants about the discrepancy. 

Upon receiving my son’s latest Happy Meal, I feel as if I can relate to this scene. His favorite part of the Happy Meal is the french fries, so when we opened up the cardboard box the meal is packaged in, I was dumbfounded at the package of fries that was in the container. As you will see in the photo below (I'll also put a promotional photo), what we received was minimal at best. The Happy Meal sized fry container contained in our meal was halfheartedly filled by the slob packaging the meals making approximately $7.57 - $7.77 an hour. (http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=McDonald%27s_Corporation/Hourly_Rate) I wish I would have taken a picture of the fries when I dumped them on the try. I can assure you that I counted and there was 10 fries total, some of which were halves of fries. It was a pathetic sight.

Now I understand McDonald’s caved into pressure to make their meals happier and down sized their fries and substituted a package of apples in its place, but there is a difference between downsizing and embarrassment and I think that this crossed that line. I could have called McDonald’s to complain, but what would that have gotten me, a free order of fries to replace this embarrassment? That’s not even worth the drive to get them. When a 2 year old says “Daddy, where’s my french fries”, you know there is an issue… Even a kid knew this was not right. If a two year old was able to recognize this, why was the incompetent fuck packaging the meal unable to see how pitiful this order of fries was? Seeing how disappointed my son looked over some french fries was heartbreaking to me and it was a completely avoidable situation. Some of you may be thinking that I am making a big deal over nothing, or that the food is unhealthy and he was better off with a small portion. Number one, when I see my son disappointed over something that should have never been an issue to begin with, I have grounds to be pissed off. Number two, this is a once a week treat for him. It is not a regular every night meal like some of the trash around the country passes fast food off as.

If you are so concerned about health and nutrition within the Happy Meals, think about this. Their healthy option substituted into the Happy Meals is apples… apples that do not go brown after leaving them out overnight. I did not notice that my son had the apples in the drink holder on his tray, thus they sat out overnight. When I had noticed them this morning, they had absolutely zero browning at all. What kind of preservatives are they putting on those fucking apples? I’m not sure, but I’ll take the deep frying over chemicals any day.

No matter what I say or if I even boycotted McDonald’s, nothing will ever change. They will continue the poor service, incorrectly packaging orders and continue with the status quo. Fast food is over a $20 Billion a year corporation, if they lose a few customers here or there, they will not give a fuck, they’ll never even notice. All I can hope for is someone in the fast food business to read this, and maybe put forth a better effort at their job. You as well as others may think it is shitty job, but that job can put a smile on a child’s face...