People told me parenting would change me, I never expected how much it’d make me appreciate McDonald’s.
Yesterday my wife and I were in a new city with our 1 year old son. It was our normal dinner time of ~5:45 when he started crying and wouldn’t stop. We were frenetically searching places to eat, how far to walk, and doing mental math of how long it’d take to get him food. My wife saw McDonald’s 2 miles away on Google Maps and 10 minutes later he was happily tearing through chicken nuggets.
This experience illustrated why I’ve turned into McDonald’s afficianado
- Location: Almost anywhere you go McDonald’s is nearby. At home we know which restaurants to get, but when we’re elsewhere we don’t know what to get/what to do and this cuts through the cognitive overload.
- Reliability: You know what you’ll get. Every McDonald’s serves almost exactly the same menu in the same way and we can rely on it solving our toddler tantrums
- Speed: We get our food within 5 minutes of arriving and sometimes 1 minute if you use the app. Compared to a sitdown meal or even fast casual taking 10-15 minutes, this is at minimum 10 minutes less crying
- Offering: The Happy Meal is perfectly designed to satiate toddlers. Unlike most food we try, he will reliably eat chicken nuggets, fries, and apple slices. They are all finger food so we don’t need to spoon feed him or worry about a big mess. I’m not sure I could design a better meal even at home.
I’m not advocating for daily McDonald’s as I recognize it’s not the most healthy offering. As an often worn out parent though, it’s becoming an indispensable tool during crises.