The Big Mac Attack!!

My daughter thought I should title this blog, "My Mom is Ridiculous."

And she's probably right.

Most people know I'm a big cry baby.

I just don't usually bawl over Big Macs.

Until today.

"There's a McDonald's up ahead," I say on our drive back from the coast.

"Yuk!" replied Natalie, "OH! But there's a Subway!"

I whine in response, "But I want a Big Mac!"

I give in because, well, she'd just been telling me about her cousin who got up and told the whole family that he couldn't get any sleep because she kept kicking him and twisting his nipples all night.

"I did NOT twist his nipples. He spins total lies just to be funny!!! I hate that!"

God I love my family.

:)

"Okay, fine. I'll take you to Subway. Then I'll go across the road to McDonald's and get my Big Mac."

I'm so happy that she's being so nutritionally aware.....and then she comes out with a Footlong Meatball Marinara.

Excellent choice.

We head over and see that there are about 50 cars in line at McDonald's.

I'm anxious to get going, so I drive on, irritated that she didn't bother to offer me a bite even after I told her I was starving.

"Okay, well I'm not world hunger starving, but I'm hungry."

"There's a Burger King 10 miles ahead," she informs me.

"I don't want a Whopper. I want a Big Mac."

"You'll regret it."

I remind her that I am usually always regretting some dumb thing I do as I drive on some more until I see the beautiful golden arches.

(insert angelic Hallelujah chorus here)

I gas up and pull into the drive-thru when Natalie says, "I'll take a strawberry milkshake." 

Strawberries are fruit..right?

Okay, fine.

So I order a medium, because...I'm going to want some and she's not very "shary", with her food or her feelings lately.

She's almost 15.

Retrieving my sack lunch and then maneuvering my way up I37, I tell her she's going to have to prepare my food.

There's heavy traffic and I'm driving a car I'm not used to.

It's my other daughter's totally banged up car with a very distracting zebra steering wheel cover.

I kept wanting to tell people all weekend, "It's not my car."

I would not have zebra print seat covers and Hawaiian lays hanging from the rear view mirror. 

But....I'm grateful for the gas savings as it somehow went up to $3.69 a gallon right before our annual Port Aransas Extravaganza.

Anyway, back to the Big Mac debacle...

"I just need you to open it up and pour a puddle of ketchup in the lid and dump the fries in, so I can eat and drive at the same time."

I'm trying not to text and drive these days but eating, well...at this point it's about survival.

I was about to eat my elbow.

But, she's ignoring me, apparently engrossed in the swirling and mixing of the whipped cream in the top of her shake.

"Hello?!??!! You've already eaten 6" of food and I'm staaaaarving!!!"

"Oh, yeah."

A few more miles pass before I finally look over and see red stuff oozing out from under the top bun.

"OH MY GOSH!! Did you just put ketchup on my Big Mac?"

I didn't give time for a response to that question before I went into full on....ticked off mode.

"SEriously??? You put ketchup on my Big Mac? Who does that? Why would you do that? Ketchup doesn't go on a Big Mac!"

"It's a burger. You always eat ketchup on your burgers."

Can anyone even imagine my utter horror?

"It's a Big Mac for God's sake! It's two all beef patties, SPECIAL SAUCE, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun!!! There's no frickin' ketchup! That's why they have the Special Sauce!"

She just stared at me like I was making a big deal out of nothing.

And then I started to cry.

"Oh my gosh! You're going to cry over a sandwich?"

"It was a $6.00 sandwich!!"

"It was a combo meal," she says back to me, "with large fries."

"I only eat about two Big Macs a year and now that one is ruined! That's just great."

"I thought you were starving? There really are children starving all over the world ya know. They would be more than happy to eat a ketchup infested Big Mac."

Ugh.

I hate it when she throws my own words up in my face.

But seriously.

I may throw up in my mouth a little if I have to eat it like that.

There are some things that just don't go together!

Ya know? Am I right? Can you imagine?

So she makes a lame attempt to scrape the ketchup off with one of the less soggy french fries and shoves the box up next to me, crowding my right side in an awkward manner that barely lets me even reach the stupid sandwich.

"There. Just eat it."

Then Michael Jackson jumped into my head with the revised classic, "Just eat it. Just eat it. No one wants to be defeated. Just eat it."

Grrrrr!

I drove the remaining 126 miles and contemplated how some things really just don't go together and are probably meant to be separated for good reason.

Genesis 1:4 says, "God saw that the light was good, and he separated it from the darkness."

Funny how mixing ketchup and Special Sauce then reminded me of the verse I was reading earlier in the morning while co-mingling myself with light and darkness.

Psalm 1....which then led me to also read Proverbs 1.

Yikes!

Okay, okay already! 

Ronald McDonald might have thought it was funny, but I did not.

So I apologized.

To God for my disobedience.

And then to Natalie for bawling over my Big Mac.

But I also couldn't let her get off scott free....

So later I told her....

"I truly am sorry.....And I've been thinking about it all day. Since you are so obviously compassionate and concerned about starving children, we're going to eat at Arby's and donate some of your school clothes shopping money to the No Kid Hungry campaign!"

"We'll get a big roast beef sandwich...and extra Horsey-Sauce, minus the ketchup of course....."

How's that for Good Mood Food?