Loving Cheeseburgers

I came back to the states with a deep want for McDonald’s. I hadn’t had McDonald’s for roughly eleven years boycotting their history of unsustainable, unhealthy food and their often general evil capitalistic ways (note: I do happen to know someone who works for McDonald’s and fights the evil ways from the inside as well as she rocks my socks shout out to her ). I decided that since I was back in the states and my desire for McDonald’s was so strong I would just go for it and rationalize my decision later… that and my views on capitalism are changing slightly…. what!?!?!

I went to McDonald’s with my uncle Stevie who has been a long time lover of all Mickey D’s (except the one time season lobster roll). I ordered a cheeseburger, a vanilla shake, and a medium order of fries. The most immediate reason for McDonald’s is that it is actually really delicious. The thing is lots of food is really delicious, but I was definitely drawn to going to McDonald’s specifically. I was getting into the car and my uncle noted that one thing he loved about McDonald’s was that it always tasted the same. And he’s right. Eating french fries with sweet and sour sauce tasted the exact same as when I was seven. Coming home from Malawi has been quite the mixture of good and bad and I have definitely had many moments where I feel just as scared and small as i did when I was seven (side note: speaking of small…many upon my return have commented on my height asking if I have grown?!?!?! many have commented on this, did I grow in Malawi? or perhaps people don’t remember how tall I actually am? mystery…), so it made sense that i wanted something that didn’t remind me of high school or college, but a restaurant that took me back to when you hold a balance of feeling really scared while at the same time being able to be comforted fairly easily by all who are older. When maybe my perfect world revolves around independent burger places that only serve cows the neighborhood has known, I understand the comfort of and the want to go somewhere, where you know not only what you can get, but pretty much exactly how it will taste. This fact made me hopeful. It’s hard to pry people away from what tastes and feels good, but its attainable to be in the process of building the familiar. It’s daunting to think about tearing down fast food chains and meat factories, or industrial farms. Its more attainable and more sustainable to build into the familiar a new-found familiar justice. I can only do so much tearing down and breaking and I feel so much of the time you have to do so much of both of these in personal relations that it’s exhausting to think about doing it in a larger context composed of countless relationships. But I can build familiarity in a way that brings more sustainability into what people perceive and know as familiar. Inevitably I will have to tear down a lot, but its good to know that perhaps a revolutionary way to spur change is to build up a new familiar. Plus now as “research” into how people need, and what they perceive as the “familiar”, I should probably go to McDonald’s and have another cheeseburger with fries. and a shake. and perhaps more fries. and then give up fitting into a pair of skinny jeans that have unfortunately have never been all that familiar. oh well.

three days later: I was driving back from Boston and it was roughly three in the morning. the roads were pretty empty and in the distance a 24-hour McDonald’s glowed. Not only had I recently decided that it would benefit my pursuit of justice to go to McDonald’s again, but it only seemed fair as a goodbye to the States, to go through a drive-thru at 3 am. So I pulled in and then pulled up to the window. You would have thought that by my psychotic smile and nervous anxiety that I was driving up to the window to complete a drug drop off. And while I sort of felt as though I was on crack, I was only purchasing chicken nuggets. A ten-piece pack no less, due to my nervous ordering where I could only see a chicken nugget option as a ten piece deal, and being unfamiliar with the sizing of chicken nuggets and protocol of drive-thrus, I just stammered out the most neon bright option. I then drove off and pulled into my drive-way and realized I couldn’t get out of the car. I couldn’t enter the home where I had sat at the kitchen counter writing letters to various presidents, organizations, companies, and McDonald’s, dictating to them they ways in which they must change. I opened up my huge box of chicken, turned on bad pop music and felt that I was perhaps going to be arrested by some sort of moral police who would catch me in my devouring of factory raised chicken. They didn’t, I turned the car off, noticed the sweet and sour sauce on the car seat, and gracefully slid out, smelling of fast food, and holding inside the complexities of all that tastes and feels good but that does not always cause or come from good.