McDonald's Sucks Even Harder Now

I take Griffin to the mall at least once a week. He’s almost a year old, and gets angry when I keep in the house too long. He starts climbing the walls, literally, like a mental patient, until I take him out. So I was taking Griffin around on our weekly and sometimes bi-weekly trip to the mall when I noticed something very amiss.

Now, the mall is a temple of consumerism, I get that. But it also has some beauty, like sculptures and fountains. Or at least, it did. That day, we walked past the fountain like we normally did, but then I stopped. Or, I should say we walked where the fountain used to be. I had to keep looking because it didn’t register right away, and I thought to myself, now THAT ISN’T RIGHT.

The fountain had been drained. The sculpture in its center removed. In its place was a new statue: That of a giant McDonald’s coffee cup replete with whipped cream and a statue of a guy climbing on it, to advertise the new McCafe coffee drinks.

Different descriptive terms swirled in my head from “piece of shit” to “abomination”. It was horrible. They took out the one piece of non-commercial beautification in the mall and made it into a tacky shrine of overconsumption. It was bad enough it was an ad, but to show how huge it was an insult on top of a grotesquery. It’s like they were saying, ”Don’t just eat and drink our fat and chemically laden food, eat and drink them in huge quantities. We, as fast food purveyors, simply cannot kill you fast enough. What’s taking so long?”

We want our kids to eat healthier, sure. We still do fast food, but only In and Out Burger because it’s fresh, not full of chemicals, a family owned business, and they pay their employees a decent wage. Oh, and it tastes the best too. Win-Win-Win.

Maybe I’ve overreacted because I’ve read Fast Food Nation, which was an eye opener. But we’ve never taken the kids to the fast food chains and it will be a rare occurrence if we do. I remember once for Bella’s birthday someone gave her a $5.00 coupon for a happy meal at McDonald’s, saying it was a tradition for them. We thanked them, knew they meant well and then later threw it in the trash.