There are no Golden Arches in Heaven.

By the way, my profile picture on the right side of the screen, is supposed to be a joke. I don't actually wear turtlenecks and scarves.

Today, we went to McDonald's. Sometimes the craving just arrives unannounced. We are broke (as a joke, if you will), so we don't go out to eat very often, not even to "our-99-cent-menu-is-the-highlight-of-our-advertisement" places. Before tonight, we couldn't really remember the last time we had been to a McDonald's. As soon as I stepped in the door, synesthesia triggered my brain's motor cortex. The smell of oil and bleach brought back many recollections. One thing that I recalled is that it's impossible to get a GOOD meal at Mickey D's for less than 10 dollars. It's always been that way for as long as I remember. We tried to be extra frugal tonight; I got a meal and shared my fries with Luanne, and all she got was chicken nuggets (sorry . . . MCnuggets), and it cost 10 bucks! My meal was only 5 dollars, that means that it cost another $5 for 10 small pieces of chemically treated (and frankly, ill-behaved), frozen poultry. I've gotten way more food than that at other places for less than $5. We both also noticed that the large fry that came with the meal was a lot smaller than we remembered. Not only that, but the Big Mac I had seemed smaller, the drink, and the chicken nuggets, all smaller. Everything shrunk, but I swear the prices grew. We concluded our meager feast within minutes, and then we looked at each other and both concurred that we still felt hungry. Am I just getting bigger, or is McDonald's food actually getting smaller? I felt completely ripped off! That's 10 bucks that we could have, y'know, purchased groceries with, or payed our electricity bill with. We looked at the Subway across the street and thought, "man, we should have split a 5 dollar footlong. Cheaper AND more filling AND healthy-er-ish."

Here comes my biggest annoyance, and this is applicable to most fast food restaurants: I hate ketchup packets! Here's the thing; I love ketchup, and I usually use at least a gallon of it per carton of fries (that's not true). I am in love with restaurants that have a ketchup pump. Ketchup packets just might be the cause of my premature demise. First of all, to get the amount of ketchup that I need to adequately douse my fries, I have to grab at least fifty of those little packets. I grab a handful, stuff them into a pocket, grab another handful, repeat, all while holding my tray of food with the other hand. THEN, I sit down to eat and of course I've already eaten a few naked fries because my hunger over-powers the faculties of my body and my hand just sort of haphazardly grabbed them, and the result is a greasy hand. I push all of my food aside to make a landing pad on my tray for my ketchup to come to berth, and I rip into my first plastic-y packet of ketchup, but my chubby, greased up extremeties can't tear into the perforated edge! I finally figure it out (usually by using my fake, cemented teeth), and with two firm rub-downs on the packet between my finger and thumb, I have about half a tablespoon of ketchup on my tray. I repeat this process with the next packet, and the next, so on and so on, and each one gradually makes me more and more annoyed because I just wanna freaken eat! I usually average about 4 packets that I've emptied onto my tray before I just give up and move on to the eating part. And I, like most others that I've observed, eat using the following method: I hold my lopsided burger (it may not be pretty, but at least they made it in less than 30 seconds!) with my left hand, and after approximately every 2 to 3 bites from the burger, I will grab a few fries with my right hand, drown them in ketchup and stuff them in my mouth while there's still a wad of chewed meat in my mouth. I call it the "eat your food before it gets cold" method. I do that cycle a couple of times, and then . . . more problems. I've found that 4 ketchup packets will only cover about 5 or 6 whole fries. So, I carefully put down my burger, making sure that no part of it is touching anything other than the tissue paper it came wrapped in, because heaven forbid that some germs on your table contaminate your fatty, greaseburger, and tear into some more ketchup packets, but by now my fingers are even greasier than they were before. Not only that, but that "special sauce" (which tastes eerily like Thousand Island dressing mixed with pickle juice) has dripped from the burger onto my hand. Disgruntlement for me increases and amusement for others begins. The dang packets get the best of me, and I mentally collapse into my most primitive instincts, like a caveman. I grunt, and spit, and beat my chest. Luanne can attest; there is not much in the world that gets the best of me, but when I have to deal with ketchup packets, it takes all my energy to keep my cool. I inevitably end up saying things that I regret, usually something directed to the packet itself as if it had feelings that I could maliciously hurt. I throw them across the table (when I actually want to throw them at the McDonald's employees), and I want to usually just throw my fries too. I usually end up eating the last third of my fries without ketchup (which I hate, by the way), just because I can't deal with the packets anymore without going postal. I HATE ketchup packets! And for a $10 meal, they should throw in my own personal squeeze bottle of ketchup and some Beano for the gas I'll get later. I'm going to Subway next time.