My Last Meal at McDonald’s

I started working at McDonald’s the day I turned 16. That was… long ago.

Since that time, I will fully admit it — I love McDonald’s. This, despite working there for over three years (which is an ETERNITY in McDonald’s Land) and cooking tens of thousands of Big Mac and Quarter Pounders.

Honestly, I couldn’t possibly begin to estimate how many Mickey D’s burgers I’ve cooked, and consumed.

Now I have tried to be a good boy since keeling over with a heart attack just over a year ago, and I have cut my consumption of fast food significantly. As in almost completely. Occasionally though I’ll get a little craving. A hankering for some McD’s.

That happend just two nights ago. I wanted a Quarter Pounder, and by God, I was going to get one!

Problem is, I live in downtown Seattle. I don’t have a car. So I have to walk everywhere. That makes it difficult when you walk to a McDonald’s, only to find it closed at 8:00pm (welcome to Downtown Seattle. Nothing stays open very late). Trying to avoid the McD’s on 3rd avenue, with its crowd of crack dealers and homeless people didn’t work. So off I went to 3rd and Pine in my continuing quest.

Here’s a transcript of my interaction with the server:

“I’d like a Quarter Pounder please, hold the cheese.”

“I’m sorry, we’re out of Quarter Pounders.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope! We ran out of meat a couple of hours ago.”

“How is that possible?”

I swear to God, the kid looks around, leans over and says, “Shitty management. It happens all the time.”

OK, so that was a little bit funny. But it was also WAY annoying. Honestly, how is it possible for a McDonald’s to run out of meat, shitty management or not? Frozen meat. I used to work there. I used to unload the boxes of meat from the distributer. You just stack them up in the walk-in freezer. You can’t run out of meat at a McDonald’s, regardless of your incompetence level.

Or so I thought.

“Big Mac?” was my next attempt.

“Uh, yeah, of course!” says Honest Counter Boy, like asking if they have any Big Macs is a stupid question. 30 seconds prior I would have thought it was a pretty stupid question too. Now, not-so-much.

So I get my Big Mac, sit down amongst several of Seattle’s finest citizens and I crack open my Big Mac box.

Back in the day, I would have snarfed that thing down in about six bites.

I took one bite and thought to myself, “Damn, this sucks. It’s like eating cardboard with a LOT of salt on it.”

I choked down a few more bites and thought to myself, “This doesn’t just suck. It tastes like shit.”

That was it. I couldn’t eat any more. What you see pictured above was all I could manage to choke down. Me, the guy that used to knock down a double-quarter pounder, large fries and three large sodas — for a snack.

I told this story on Facebook, here’s a small snip of that conversation:

Why, indeed. (Though for a moment there, it looked like the homeless guy was going to cry when I handed him half a burger. It really was quite sad.)

But give it away I did. And at that moment in time, standing there on the corner of Third & Pine, I realized that I may very well never step foot in a McDonald’s again.

For some of you, that won’t seem like a big deal. For a guy that’s loved his Mickey D’s all his life, that is a very very different feeling.

But, it DOES taste like shit. More importantly, it is just horrible “food”.

So adios McDonald’s. I thank you for teaching me work ethics when I was young, for being there late at night in my youth and for providing a ton of memories. But it’s time for you to get out of my life for good. I thought that would be hard. Turns out, it is remarkably easy after all. I can’t even imagine missing it.