The No-Good, Very Bad McDonald's

We were on our way home from a track meet and Alyssa asked if we could stop at McDonald’s and get her a McDouble, fries and a strawberry shake.

I said sure and we headed north and west, toward home and the nearest McD’s. We were about an hour away from home, in Defiance, Ohio.

We found the McD’s and took our place in the drive-thru line. The line wasn’t bad when we got there. It got much worse soon after we arrived.

I placed our order: 1 McDouble cheese burger 1 six-piece chicken McNuggets with ranch 2 medium fries 1 medium strawberry shake 1 medium chocolate shake 1 large Coke 1 water

We head to the first window where we handed over our $17.31, exact change, thank you very much because I’m ancient and it’s what I do. They were lucky I didn’t have an actual change purse carrying all my coins.

We got to the second window and the girl inside asked, “What did you have?”

I told her and she handed us our water, Coke and a bag of food. I asked about the shakes.

She looked confused and asked someone inside if they’d ‘made’ the shakes.

You know that at McD’s, you don’t actually MAKE shakes, right? You just pour the milky substance from the machine into the cups. It’s not complicated.

She then asked us to please go park in “Drive-Thru Reserved Parking #2.”

Mmmm, okay. We did this and Alyssa ate her McDouble in about four bites. She was hungry. She snacked on her fries while we waited for her strawberry shake.

My mom ate her fries and we waited for the shakes. We hoped whoever brought the shakes would also bring straws for our Coke and water since they hadn’t been place in the bag with the food like they usually were.

I looked at the clock and it was 7:06. I declared that at 7:15, I would go inside, Covid be damned, and ask for the shakes.

My mom decided that was a ridiculous amount of time to wait and stomped inside.

She came out with straws but no shakes.

She said that the straws were just inside the door so she’d just grabbed them and left.

I had been waiting for the straw to eat my McNuggets because I wanted to drink the sweet, sweet Coke while I ate.

I ate a nugget and took a drink of the Coke. It tasted weird but I thought nothing of it. It was similar to when I’d had issues with my taste buds right after chemo.

I finished off the nuggets with minimal sips of Coke because it really was a weird taste.

A poor McD’s worker, a very thin young man with crossed eyes, came to our car with a bag. I wondered for a moment if he’d bagged our shakes. Nope, he asked if we were the car waiting for the McDouble and 6-piece nuggets.

I replied that we were actually waiting for shakes. But as he walked away, I realized he’d brought the FOOD we’d ordered and received. He’d already walked back inside before I could ask when we might expect the shakes.

The woman in the car next to us got out and stormed into the restaurant. I got out and threw away our garbage and decided I’d go in too and see what the problem was with the shakes.

I decided that while I was already out of the car, I’d also go inside and find out about the shakes.

The woman who’d stomped into the restaurant came back out, fire shooting out of her ears.

I got up to the counter and ignored for a few seconds but then the cross-eyed dude came back in after taking something out and I asked him about the shakes.

An older (probably 30s) woman asked what kind of shakes and what size.

I told her.

She told poor cross-eyed dude to make them for me.

I waited. And waited.

The poor fella seemed to be having trouble filling the cups with the shakes. He grabbed a handful of napkins and cleaned the chocolate off the outside of the cup.

Then he came to the counter and asked very timidly, “Uhh, the strawberry isn’t working. Will you take vanilla?”

I politely told him yes, I would take vanilla.

I just REALLY wanted to get out of there. I felt like if I was in there much longer, I would never escape and it would turn into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

I escaped with my mom’s chocolate shake and Alyssa’s now-vanilla shake.

They were relieved to see me, having feared, like I had, that I’d never return from the black hole that was McDonald’s lobby.

I picked up my Coke for another drink and paused when I saw that the lid had the ‘diet’ tab pushed in.

SON OF A BITCH!

That was why my Coke tasted weird. It was DIET. I HATE diet Coke.

However.

I was NOT going back in the restaurant. I had maybe taken five drinks so it was pretty full. I figured it was the universe telling me I didn’t need caffeine that late in the evening.

The rest of our trip home was uneventful. We ranted a bit about the service at that McDonald’s but then let it go because life’s too short to get that miffed about a couple of shakes. We were in good company and had a nice evening.

When I got home, I was preparing to pour the nasty diet Coke down the drain when Tom stopped me.

He took a sip and declared it, “Deeeeee-licious.”

Then he proceeded to drank it all. I was glad because suddenly I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my money.