A New Year

I had my second meal of the new year alone, at a McDonald's. I was driving up the I-5 back home to San Francisco after more than a week spent in LA with my family, when I was struck by pangs of hunger and the need for a bathroom break. After miles and miles with no rest stop in sight and contemplating just pulling off to the side, I spotted activity in the distance. I took the exit and saw my two food options: McDonald's and Foster's Freeze. I started to hate myself for not taking my mom up on packing me a lunch before I left.

Not wanting to make a meal of soft-serve ice cream and a hot dog, I opted for the McDonald's. The parking lot was packed. The restaurant was packed. I was a little frightened but stepped up to the counter and ordered a chicken nugget meal with fries and a Coke, my go-to meal on those rare occassions when I find myself in the middle of nowhere and my only option for quenching my hunger is a McDonald's. My number was called a second after I placed the order. I took my bag of food and my cup of soda to the only open seat, a single-spot in the corner.

I pulled out my New Yorker, squirted ketchup from their packets, and began dunking fried food into the various assortment of sauces and putting them into my mouth, when I noticed how wonderful McDonald's can be. Sitting there alone and slightly spiteful about the fact that I was eating processed food from McDonald's, I saw how, all around me, were families, generations of people eating together. There was a Chinese family with a mom, dad, two kids, a grandfather, and a grandmother eating hamburgers and fries. Next to them was an Indian family--mom, dad, kids, and a grandfather--eating, possibly, not hamburgers. And, yes, there were those obnoxious families with kids running around sticking french fries in their parents' faces, but they, somehow, didn't seem so annoying.