Fast Food, take 2

I don’t know what it is about Highway 2 but apparently it puts my family in the mood for fast food.   Last year we had our inaugural tour of McDonald’s and all its deep-fried french fry glory.   We haven’t been back since that fateful day but as we drove home yesterday from a weekend on the Skykomish River with our community group, we started to reminisce.

You know how it is.  We passed the parking lot where things really started to go bottom-up for us last year but rather than feeling full of bitterness and lament, we found ourselves saying things like, “Awwww, remember how we sprayed ourselves with bear spray?  Remember how Isaiah wanted to poop on the sidewalk?  Remember how we pulled into that McDonald’s and his eyes were spicy?   Yeah.  Good times.”    

Finding ourselves in a much better place this year, we were able to make a more rational lunchtime decision.  We were in a time crunch but we needed to eat.  We scanned our options as we drove and decided that our foray into the world of fast food this time around would be Taco Bell.

We were nervous though.  We didn’t have any other lunch options in the car and the boys didn’t actually eat the food at McDonald’s last year, save the ketchup.  It’s a lot harder to bribe a preschooler with fire sauce and we worried that they wouldn’t like the proffered burritos.  I’ve told you about our dinners lately so Jason and I were both gearing ourselves up for the weeping and gnashing of teeth that was sure to ensue; the but this doesn’t taste like OUR beans and I don’t like this cheeeeese and Can I have something else?

We settled them back into the car, nonetheless, and hoped for the best.  We passed them each a burrito, and then held our breath.   How would the despots respond?   What had we gotten ourselves into?  But you know what we heard?

Nothing.

Not a peep.  They wolfed those burritos and then asked for more. Where we expected moaning and groaning and all manner of complaining, all we heard were declarations of love and adoration.  Instead of “do we have anything else in the car?” we only heard, “when can we go back” and “oh my gosh, mama, that was SO good, I just loved it, it was SO much better than your burritos.”

Jason and I just kept looking at each other out of the corner of our eyes.  Confused.  Awestruck.  Could it be?  We gave them something to eat and… they just ate it?  Just like that?   It was freaking amazing, y’all.  We didn’t think fast food would go over as well without the play structure and the free toys.  Who knew?  It was like nothing we’ve ever before experienced.

We kept it nonchalant, though, Jason and I.  No big thing.  It’s not like we’re about to give up our values and start searching for drive-throughs every chance we get.  No, definitely not.  We would never.  I mean, I might have mapped all the Taco Bells in Seattle last night but that’s just, like, in case of a super-serious food emergency situation…or something.   You know, like if I don’t know what to make for dinner.

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I didn’t get any shots of our glorious run for the border but my friend, Jon, took some incredible shots of the rest of the weekend.  I’m thinking about printing some of these to frame.