Friday, February 1, 2008

Hello, everyone, my name is Laura and I'm a McDonald's-a-holic

Last night I had a horrible dream: my wallet was so stuffed with papers that they were sticking out and it wouldn't zip. Bryan took my wallet and pulled out all the papers and it turned out they were all receipts - from McDonald's. He read the dates and times from the receipts and figured out that I had been eating three meals a day at McDonald's for quite some time. He was mad. End of dream.

In reality, I like McDonald's. I eat there more than I should and I know it. It's definitely a weakness of mine. I probably eat it once a week now that I'm pregnant but it's not my fault - I CRAVE it - I NEED it. I know those fries must be laced with crack cocaine because they are addictive.

So after waking up from that terrible dream, I knew there was only one thing to do today: have lunch at McDonald's. Of course. After Wesley's morning nap, I loaded him into the car and we set out for the all-too-familiar terrain of the McDonald's drive-thru. Since Wes hadn't really eaten either, I decided to do something I've never done - order him a Happy Meal. And since I hadn't ordered one before, I didn't realize there were so many choices: burger or nuggets, fries or chemically altered apple slices, milk or juice or soda...After stumbling through the first three choices, I finally got to one I was sure I could answer: boy or girl. Oh yeah, I had this one! Boy.
But wait - then I saw the pictures of the toys that currently come in the Happy Meals. The one I assumed was the "boy" toy was some scary skeleton-looking creature with lots of small parts to chew off and choke on. The "girl" toy was either a stuffed puppy or kitten.

Now, as a mom, I know my son so I said to the drive-thru speaker, "Um, he's a boy but I think he would prefer the girl toy." Immediately I realized how dumb that had sounded but it was too late - I had already made my son out to be a sissy. "You want the girl toy?" the worker asked through the speaker as if I had just requested a turd on my cheeseburger. "Yes," I answered.
As we pulled around to the pay window, the worker craned her neck to peer skeptically into my backseat. I guess she expected Wesley to be wearing a tutu and a princess crown. I'm sure she was sorely disappointed to find my manly son looking at a book about animals, not holding a Barbie.

In a world where so much about a person is decided by one's genitalia, I'd like to think that today I took a stand against stereotypes. But before I take any credit for bucking the system or sticking it to "the man" I've got to remember that if I had just stayed in the kitchen, where I belong, none of this would've happened.

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