Macadoodilockis

That's "Mack-a-dood-il-ock-is" to those who didn't grow up in the Frome household. McDonald's. For some unknown reason, that restaurant was christened "Mackadoodilockis" by the younger Frome Brother, Daniel when he was a wee lad. That's what happens when your kids figure out how to read and have to spend long boring hours in the car running errands. They make up little word games. Or other games, like "Last Lick". McDonald's was always either "too expensive" or "junk food" when I was a kid. We never went. We never really got fast food anyway, but it certainly never was McDonald's. When I reached the ripe old age of about 11, you know, the age where you get your first paying job and have some money of your own, I used to go splurge on junk. I still do that, actually. I would ride my bike or take the bus to the Centerpoint Mall in Oxnard and go to the Smith's. Yeah, our mall's flagship stores were Mervyn's and a Smith's grocery store. I didn't know there weren't supposed to be that many jewelry stores in one mall! They had a PayLess! That was the cool place to buy shoes! They had a Kaybee Toy Store. They had an "It's Greek To Me". A Sav-On! What more could you need in a mall except maybe a few stores to sell frilly first communion dresses? Oh, wait. There were a couple of those, too. Anyhow... I'd go to the mall and spend hours in Sav-On, perusing the Lee Press-On nails and the vast array of quality fragrances. Exclamation!, anyone? I had a bottle of the Beverly Hills 90210 fragrance. I thought it smelled pretty good. I would buy junk food like Ring Pops and those fake plastic-like Fruit Rollups. We had to eat the real fruit leather, no artificial colors for us. There was a McDonald's a few blocks away from the mall, and I would get up early on Saturday mornings and ride my bike down to there and buy the Egg McMuffin meal. I don't know if it was actually a "Meal" back then. I would get the hashbrowns and the OJ and go sit on a bench on the sidewalk and eat it. I remember feeling so good about myself because I wasn't shackled by a lack of funds. If I wanted something special, I could just go out and buy it. Any kind of special treat was always too expensive, according to my mom. Looking back, most of that stuff wasn't that expensive, it was just unhealthy. Money was a convenient excuse sometimes, I think. Anyway... As I grew older, I realized that fast food isn't really all that great if that's all you eat. I don't really like anything at McDonald's except for their breakfasts. I eat Wendy's a lot, but I rarely go to McDonald's except on my way home from work when I've run out of cereal and I'm too tired to go to the store. I've probably been to McDonald's three or four times in the past year when it wasn't for breakfast. I've gone because I'm in the mood for junk, but I want something different. Each time I'm secretly hoping to be really impressed, because it doesn't make sense to me that the most successful fast food chain would have a truly horrible menu. I have been mostly disappointed. I have also come to the conclusion that I ought to go without any particular food item in mind, because inevitably what I drive off with in the bag is not what I ordered. I ended up with a Filet-O-Fish that way, and I was too far away to bother going back when I realized it. I don't like the Filet-O-Fish, I have discovered. Just yesterday I went and ordered a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, with Orange Hi-C to drink. I love that drink. I'm not sure if it's because of the oversized straws, or the smooth ice cubes, or the actual drink itself. Sometimes I just crave the artificial aftertaste. So, I waited in the very long and very slow line, got my bag of stuff, got my Brown? drink and headed onto the freeway. The drink I knew was wrong, but I was tired and thought, hey, a new adventure... I wonder what I'm getting this time. A Diet Coke, which was surprisingly NOT disgusting, and a Big-N-Tasty burger meal. The fries were excellent. The best fries I've had in a long time. The Big-N-Tasty was a larger hamburger compared to most McDonald's patties, and it had a lot of pepper. And a lot of mayo and onions, but all McDonald's hamburgers have too many onions. It was tasty, but I could've just put a little bit of pepper on any other hamburger and had the same experience. I think the next time I go to McDonald's I will just tell them to surprise me. I'll pay them around five dollars, and they can put anything they want in that bag and that cup. It's more fun that way.