It was a dark, cold, not exactly windy night. Late night, 2 a.m. It was last night, to be exact. I had had a day. Mad errand running, long drive to get cheap Craigslist desk, long, hard hauling of the desk from car to apartment building, down stairs, around tricky corners, much getting stuck, and then finally into apartment and stuck again. This involved no food until about 5 p.m., and then hastily gobbled Chipotle (soooo healthy) as my friend went to his parents’ house to get a screwdriver that could properly negotiate the weird bolt-like things that held the desk legs on. Of course, after we got the legs off, it was a quick move. Then re-assembly, celebration via, erm, herbal substances, and finally putting everything away until I could sleep on my bed and then out. Friends. Celebration.
Drunken Wii, to be exact.
Which was how I found myself driving home at 2 a.m. after a 20 minute long discussion of 24 hour diners and fast food places with an inexplicable and un-ignorable desire for either fried eggs over easy or a cheeseburger, whichever came first.
McDonalds came first.
It wasn’t until I graduated from college and moved back to DC that I ate McDonalds again. This was following a long period of misguided vegetarianism and health-consciousness. Not that I advocate consciously unhealthy eating; I just no longer have a problem eating fast food from time to time. I don’t remember how or why, or even exactly when I made the decision to go back. But I do remember the first bite of those fries, crispy and soft all at the same time, dunked deep into the BBQ sauce (what do they put in that sauce? Crack?). They were so salty and so good I wondered why I had exiled myself to the desert for so long. And then the first bite of the dollar menu double cheeseburger; it’s none of that overblown value meal nonsense, no lettuce, no tomatoes, none of that weird fancyness. Two thin patties of beef, ketchup and mustard, cheese, pickles (fast food pickles are uniformly the best pickle slices ever, and the holy grail of all fast food pickle slices are Roy Roger’s pickle slices), and those little chopped onions. The secret is those little onions. They are amazing.
DC has, as far as I can tell, only one 24-hour McD’s anywhere near where I live, and that’s on Wisconsin Ave., in Tenleytown just below American University. When I pulled into my parking spot last night, it was clear to me that I was not the only person who had the same idea. There was a line of teetering somewhat drunk to holy-hell-I-hope-you-have-a-designated-driver drunk people swaying in line behind a rather sober looking middle aged man in dress pants and a knee-length black wool dress coat. He looked like the kind of guy who would elbow his way in front of you at the bar and halfway apologize for being so incredibly rude, and point to some over-tanned plastic surgery blonde and explain he had to make his “lady” happy. With a cosmo. Of course.
The first thing I noticed, with some unease, was that this McDonalds was nice. Pretty muted taupe tiles, with black accents, many tables with very nice chairs, and something that could even have passed for a chandelier if you tried hard enough. I was disturbed, and a little amused. I guess, I thought to myself, this is what it looks like when your McDonalds makes a lot of money. Oh, and the line in front of me was about 15 strong.
There were only two guys working the counter and kitchen when I got there, thought a third materialized at about 2:15 for his overnight shift and that seemed to help. The man in the black coat ordered, paid, stepped aside. Another couple ordered, paid, stepped aside. Then the casheir stepped away to tend to fries that had finished. He lifted them from the oil, shook them, gave them a second to drain. The man in the black coat suddenly tensed up and leaned forward. The cashier dumped them into the fry bin. “Excuse me,” the man in the coat said, sounding slightly panicked. “Excuse me!”
The cashier didn’t seem to hear. He automatically, with the weariness of a man who will do this same action over and over and over again every single day, he grabbed the huge shaker of salt and doused the fries but good. The man in the coat deflated a bit and dropped his hand, which he had raised, pointer finger erect, with his second, more urgent “Excuse me!” Turning back, the cashier at last noticed him. “Yes?” he asked. “I didn’t want salt on my fries,” the man in the coat grumbled.
For a second, you could’ve heard a pin drop.
The cashier recovered smoothly. “You can have fries from the next batch,” he promised, and indeed another basket was frying away. He turned away to get orders put together, but the rest of us in line immediately began to titter. “Cardboard,” the drunk young man in front of me said decisively to his date, “You should just go upstairs and eat the fucking cardboard cartons, that’s what those taste like without salt.”
Most of us were looking at each other and then back at him with stunned disbelief. It was 2 a.m. He was at a McDonalds. No salt on his fries? Look, Mickey D’s will take the tomato off your burger, I supose (though, really, isn’t that more Burger King’s thing?), but this is fast food. If you want to tweak your meal, go to a fuckin’ restaurant. Even a diner will do things to order. Steak and Egg* is just up the street.
Orders complete, the cashier returned to his register. A boisterous threesome comprised of two tall men — one rather rotund — and the tiniest little girl I’ve ever freakin’ seen (she was about 5 feet tall and she was wearing pointy 4 inch heels), stepped up to the counter. Loudly, and with gusto, the rotund man proclaimed: “We’ll have two 20-piece chicken nuggets, two large fries, two Big Macs, a chocolate shake, a large Coke, apple pies, and a partridge in a pear tree.” The cashier looked nonplussed so the man clarified, “Well, everything but the partridge.” As the cashier carefully entered the mondo order (and the other man and the girl bickered over her paying, with the man gallantly proclaiming, “I’ll give this to the cashier as a tip if you try to give it to us again!” before shoving her $20 bill back into her hands), the rotund man shot the whole line a sly smile and leaned in again. “And I’ll have salt on the fries.“
I don’t know if the man in the coat heard. For a moment I thought he did (he was almost out the door) and I felt a little bad for him. But then I remembered that it was now 2:20 and we were still in McDonalds.
Picky eaters not welcome.
P.S. – my double cheeseburger and medium fries were delicious, thankyouverymuch.
*If you’ve never been to Steak and Egg in Tenleytown, you should really go. Basic, awesome, greasy diner food. One counter, eight seats, two outside tables. 24/7.
