The Sad Meal

When I was a kid, going out to eat was a special, treasured event. We generally ate at home and only went to a restaurant maybe once a month when I was little, and only slightly more often than that as I hit my teens. If you misbehaved, you certainly weren’t going to be taking a trip to Mickey D’s to yummy down on burgers & fries, let alone a sit-down meal somewhere. You don’t reward kids when they’re bad, despite what the common practice is as of late.

Nowadays, eating out happens all the time and kids are so used to it that it’s no longer all that special, but rather just the norm. Kids just expect that Happy Meal any time they want, no matter how bad and bratty they’ve been. They could burn down half the neighborhood with a can of WD-40 and a Bic lighter, and by God they’ll be pumped full of salt & cholesterol and rolling in that bacteria-laden ball pit in Ronald’s Playland before the end of the evening news.

But what if I’m the one craving a Big Mac, or I realllly don’t wanna cook, but my kid just drew a stick figure with a giant penis on the wall at school? Or he just flushed a tennis ball down the toilet?

Call me Old Skool but I can’t see carting an ill-behaved little turd out for fast food and a toy. Should I be forced to forego my own culinary self-destruction just because my kid’s a shithead? No way, man. I’m ordering my kid a SadMeal™.

A SadMeal™, you say? Indeed, dear reader.

A Happy Meal comes in a brightly colored decorative box full of cartoons, smiles, and a puzzle or two. A choice of a burger of nuggets, fries, and a drink, plus a cheap-assed lead-painted trinket toy from China geared towards whatever Hollywood crapfest is being pushed that week. A veritable Kinder-Nirvana.

Not so with a SadMeal™.

A SadMeal™ comes in a non-descript, plain cardboard box that feels a bit rough and sandpapery, with the only real decoration being the disapproving scowl of Rosie O’Donnell. Instead of a fun puzzle or activity, your little penitent is burdened by an algebraic equation.


Instead of a choice of entrees, the choice here lies in the side items. Your little hellion gets the option of a small cup of lima beans or Brussels sprouts. The entrée is a 5-piece order of Liver McNuggets. We’re not total animals; the kid also gets to choose his/her dipping sauce. The choices are: Painful Wasabi, Olde English Malt Vinegar, Nguoc-Nam Vietnamese Fish Sauce, or our own special McBlender Sauce of Dill Pickle Juice, Anchovies, Cayenne Pepper, and Sea Salt. You can still opt to give your kid a soda should you choose, but we offer only Moxie soda with the SadMeal™, or you can also opt for an ice-cold carton of fresh asparagus juice.


Yeah, man. Punishment rations for bad kids, and the best part: no toy, and they get to watch you enjoying your meal. Da-da-da-da-daaaaaaah….you’re hatin’ it!

Can I get a little service?

Somebody please tell me WTF ever happened to service?

I don’t ask for much at a fast-food place, really. I want a modicum of cheerfulness, a decent price, decent food, and no hassles if I do happen to have an issue or if I ask for something different like no onions or extra pickles. I do however expect a wee bit more at a sit-down establishment, like please don’t let my sweet tea run dry and if there’s a problem, please fix it without spitting in my food. I actually tip well for good service because I know that service staffs have a tough job.

This said, why oh why am I besieged constantly with surly teen (and adult) assclowns who act like doing the fucking job they were hired to do is simply too much to ask? I’m talking to YOU, the snotty mumbling kid at Subway who doles out veggies like the Soup Nazi and acts like a few extra olives are coming straight out of your paycheck. I’m talking to YOU, bitchy Arby’s manager who won’t make a wrap out of fried chicken fingers instead of grilled, and act like an extra cup of honey mustard from the kitchen is gonna bankrupt the corporation. I’m talking to YOU, money-hungry owners of the Greek place across town who have the cherries to charge $2.50 for a shot glass worth of extra dressing and have the audacity to print in the menu that you expect us to leave at least a 15% tip. That’s balls. That’s 15% on an overpriced ball of cheese with 2 drops of sauce that you dared to call a pizza, and still let the Cokes run dry.

Look, people, don’t go into the service industry if you aren’t prepared to give service. That’s sort of the central core of the job, no? I know it’s midnight on a Sunday at Steak & Shake and you don’t want to be here, but put down the cell phone and get me some more tea, please. I’m thirsty. And if your sole function is to ensure that the breakfast bar at a hotel is fully stocked, then dammit make sure there’s food on it till you close and at least try to manage a fucking smile. And hey, learn a few more words in English too while you’re at it. The majority of people in Orlando, tourist or not, speak English. Yes, I’m talking to you.

I absolutely dread going to a drive-thru anymore. Invariably the sullen minimum-wage shitbird in the window is gonna mumble incoherently into the speakerbox (I had to learn that “Dry Roww” meant “Thank you for your order, please drive around.”) And then they fuck your order up so bad that it’s just smarter to go inside. This past Wednesday was a perfect example. My co-worker went to the drive-thru at McNasty’s to get lunch and when he got back to the break room he found that not only did they not put any ranch on his McRanch McChicken McSammich, they had instead used like 2 drops of McMayo and gave him no extra packets. Again, people act like a couple extra packets of ketchup or an extra sweet and sour sauce for your McNugz will collapse the World Bank and usher in Chaos and the Apocalypse.

There are, however, a couple notable exceptions. The crew at the Sonic that I go to are always chipper and happy to accommodate. And I don’t think I have ever had a bad experience at Chik-Fil-A anywhere in America. Most of the crew on duty at any given time are polite church-goers barely past their 16th birthday and are unfailingly polite. Not once has any of them given me just cause to want to drag one of them across the counter for a tune up. They are well-spoken, well-groomed, pleasant kids who all seem like productive members of polite society (perhaps in Stepford) as opposed to oxygen-wasting sacks of protoplasm whose sole brain cell died of loneliness as they pondered today’s episode of Maury.

If you hate your job, get a new one. In the meanwhile, do your job. And can I get a couple more napkins, please?