Vol. 23 - Please Pull Around to the Second Window
On Drive Thrus
It’s pull is inescapable. And no matter how much you try and convince yourself that you aren’t going to succumb to the urges or how you remind yourself just how awful you’ll feel (physically and emotionally) afterwards or how fast you do the mental math to try and figure out how much harder you’ll have to work out that afternoon, it’s nigh impossible to not order that one value menu cheeseburger or a four-piece (ahem… six-piece) chicken nuggets.
I don’t know why. It probably has something to do with the smell that is equal parts sickening and delicious or the cognitive connection to the joy we felt when our moms would take us for Happy Meals or Whoppers when we were kids.
It’s a tricky dance and one that we have to navigate all too often as parents, as one of the very few universal truths of parenting is that hitting the drive thru is not only just too damn easy, it’s often an essential part of raising kids.
First, there’s the aforementioned ease of it.
And I’m not talking about the fact that within a matter of five minutes, I can have a hot meal in my son’s lap by doing nothing more than handing over a debit card (nutritional value or complete lack thereof notwithstanding).
I’m talking about the ease of not having find a parking spot, to loose my son from his car seat, to ask him to wait patiently by my side while I unclick his sister’s (who very likely is sleeping) hulking, bulky, and unwieldy car seat, to take them both in to a place and ask him to wait in line until it’s our turn, to set a place for him at a formica table while I stick his sister (still asleep, still in her car seat) beneath our table, only to eat quickly and repeat that entire process in reverse.
So, I can do all that.
Or I can hit the drive thru, order his meal, try and fail to resist my urge to get a cheeseburger, pass my son his food (after stealing a few “tax fries,” as we call them), and drive us home, his sister never knowing the difference.
Second of course is the fact that our son, for some reason, will eat as much as a grown ass man when he’s strapped into his car seat.
At home, at our table, in front of a plate of home-cooked food made lovingly by his father (who knows his way around more than a few classic Italian-American meals) or his mother (who is an absolute master when it comes to reading and interpreting recipes), he might pick and peck and eventually, still with a full plate, tell us he’s done, only to ask for a bowl of cereal or a granola bar or six within a half hour.
But in the back of our truck?
Six-piece, ten-piece, twelve-piece nuggets and a large order of fries are all but a distant memory by the time we get to our house.
For a while, we had a post-preschool routine down, one in which we’d head to a nearby fast food drive thru straight from school for nuggets and fries before heading to a playground for an hour or two.
Of course, as that food is made of substances that are just a rontgen or two shy of radioactive, it started to fuck his stomach up a bit (way to go, dad).
So now, the drive thru is what it should be; something that is more treat than routine, a little adventure we have once a week or so.
Which makes my indiscretion a little less severe and slightly less shameful.
After all, how much can one little Wendy’s cheeseburger a week hurt? Right?
Only inasmuch as how deeply I hate myself immediately after polishing it off.
A quick reminder that this June, in exactly sixty-six days, I’m riding my bike exactly sixty-six miles from Philadelphia to Atlantic City to help raise money for cancer research with the American Cancer Society. I’ll be riding for so many people, but most importantly, I’m honored to be riding with the For Infinity and Beyond team, celebrating the all-too-short life of Blaise Davis.
If you can donate, please do RIGHT HERE. Thank you so, so much.