McDonalds

I haven't posted in forever, so I hope there is no one reading this anymore. If you have been reading this hoping for another skeptical take on Rustimiyan life, two points: 1) I am home so this post is my external internal dialogue, and 2) you really should get out more.

I just spent two hours studying Clincal Head and Neck at McDonalds. That place amazes me. I had a coupon for a free Southern Chicken Sandwich with the purchase of a beverage. Mixing the Dollar Menu with coupons should be illegal, but they haven't closed that loophole yet so I spent a dollar six and got coffee, a sandwich, and a place to study for two hours. I did get alot of studying done, but I also had a lot of nagging thoughts that are coming together and I hope they will more by my writing them down.

Young people, or people my age which is more youngish I concede, love to speak ill of McDonalds. "Super Size Me" is a movie that slanders this American miracle by saying that you will get high colesterol by eating super-sized meals three times a day. Really??? Duh. But many of my friends and much of America's youth has seized on this obvious observation of the results of excess to condemn McDonalds. By failing to condemn stupidity and excess, they are missing one of the major points that brings contentment and joy in life.

McDonalds in my mind is not a symbol of excess, but a symbol of anti-Starbucksism. Let me explain. McD's has posted a billboard outside Starbucks headquarters in Seattle that says "Fourbucks is dumb." I don't think McD's knows how deep that is, but when I heard it I smiled for the next 45 minutes as I drove in to work. Here is why. Starbucks caters to the young, trying to convince them that if they just spend way too much on rainforest friendly coffee they will remain forever young. If you look at their lines, you will disagree because there are quite a few over-the-hillers who buy $4 coffee, but I have a different meaning for young. Young people are idealistic. They think the world can be changed. They are the fools who think their generation will be the one which finally sets the world right and avoids getting old. Yes, every generation since Adam has gotten old and died, but we won't. We are different. We are enlightened. We will hang on to youth forever. We can save the rainforest, drink organic coffee, have power careers and perfect kids, shop at JCrew, drive hybrids or SUV's or hybrid SUV's, save the environment, and be cool all at once. We eschew minivans, Wal-Mart, and McD's. We are open minded and caring even while we charitably pity (and uncharitably scorn) those who have given up on ushering in the eschaton. Those who drive their kids through the McD's drive through and shop at Wal-Mart will alternately be scoffed at for their unsophistication and hated for standing in the way of Youth's utopia.

Starbucks seeks to perpetuate this stupidity as do many in the Utopian, Organic, Whole-Foods myth perpetuating industry. The world, they want you to believe, is not fallen and decaying, or it would not be except for the unenlightened. We can change it. Yes we can!!

Most people have historically end up leaving the youthful phase when they get a job and get a family. Starbucks has pushed that age later in life than it used to be, but most still do grow up. Here is where old people eating breakfast at McD's is my beacon of contentment. When people realize that you cannot both feed your family and shop at whole food, or drink $4 coffee, or fit car seats in a Prius, they get angry. How many people resent their minivan? How many look forward to their kids being out of the house so they can again drive in their Priuii and drink overpriced coffee? How many go in debt by putting overpriced coffee on their over-used credit cards? They do this when they could be enjoying life by eating breakfast at McD's for a dollar six. How many people my age are angry because it has finally hit them that the minivan and snotty kids is as good as it gets in this life?

But old people who go into McD's and wear their Wrangler's they bought at Wal-Mart (I found a pair for $14.74) have seen something that the young have missed. Once you let go of youth you see that this is as good as it gets.... and it is great. Yeah, the coffee may have a hint of turpentine in it, but it is hot and you can afford it. Sure, if you eat supersized meals every day you may get high colesterol, but the dollar menu allows you to eat out and give your wife a break from the dishes. Being content with McD's, as many old people are, means that you can have joy in a world that is not and will not be Utopia during this lifetime. Receiving what God has given with greatfulness rather than buying on credit what He has not is what old people do. Do you think that just maybe they have figured something out?

Old people have been young and they have been old. Young people have never been old. Old people are happy to spend the morning drinking coffee off the dollar menu; young people are frantic to hold on to their youth and $4 coffee. I'll take old any day.