I sometimes use the phrase “Bad News Bears” about anything that just isn’t quite right or if something might be bad news. I find it softens the blow a little bit. It was a saying from an old girlfriend and it just kind of stuck.

Anyway, over lunch with my dad yesterday I was reminded of something bad that happened last week.

First, one day a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t brought anything to work for lunch. I had to run some errands so I just stopped in at the closest McDonald’s to get some food on my way back to the office. I had a two cheeseburger meal. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for “ketchup only”. I do that not only because I don’t like onions, pickles, or mustard, but I think it ensures that my burger hasn’t been sitting under the warming lights. I don’t mind the extra few seconds it takes for them to throw a “new” burger into the microwave.

So what does this have to do with last week? It was another day that I didn’t bring a lunch. What was I going to do? Go to Subway for a tasty toasted chicken parmesan sub? Go to the little sandwich shop for a tasty but slightly over priced freshly made sandwich? Go to the Vietnamese place for the surprisingly good and ample portions of ginger chicken? Nope. Not that day. I had a Bad News Bears feeling. I was craving McDonald’s!

I don’t care who you are, that is never a good sign.


Never before could I remember an urge to eat at Mickey D’s. I was immediately reminded of a scene in Super Size Me (which I thought was excellent and that everyone should see it) where Morgan is talking about how he was actually noticing how his mood swung greatly between when he ate McDonald’s food and when he hadn’t had it for a while.

Unable to resist the strange chemical reactions going off in my brain I drove the short distance to the Golden Arches and ordered up my old nemesis, the Double Quarter Pounder meal. I don’t recall if I’ve regaled you, my dear readers, with the sad of food poisoning I suffered from McDonald’s the day before meeting a (then) future (now) ex girlfriend. (Now that I think of it, throwing up has held a much too important place in getting together with both of my last two girlfriends–that is so weird and probably wrong on a couple of levels.) But suffice it to say, nutrition notwithstanding, I don’t presently eat a ton of Double Quarter Pounders.

I ordered the mountain of beef, cheese, and bread product and requested “ketchup only”. I poured myself a (caffeine free) Barq’s root beer while waiting for my special order to come up. When the food arrived I turned around to go sit down. There was of course no place to sit but in the children’s play area.

I wanted nothing more than to eat my fat and grease in peace. It was not to be that day. The din and caterwauling reminded me of why my brother now has kids and I do not. Halfway through the meal I spied through the glass that protected those outside the play area a couple of free tables. I immediately gathered up my food on the tray and left the pandemonium. I was able to enjoy the rest of my meal in relative peace while I ate and read newspaper articles about our beloved Vikings.

It certainly wouldn’t have been confused for anything gourmet, but it was certainly satisfying to me on that day. Dang it.