This is the extent of my patriotism

I've got McDonald's on the brain. I think it's probably because I'm sitting in one, mooching off their free Wi-Fi and sipping an iced coffee.

When I was growing up in France, (oh hey, if you're new here: I lived in France from age seven to about high school. Good, now you're all caught up.) the only fast food available was McDonalds. Well, okay, there was this other establishment called Quik Burger but somehow it just wasn't American enough for us. So by default, whenever our family decided to go out for fast food, we would inevitably end up at  McDonalds.

When I moved to Michigan for college, I avoided McDonalds like the plague. Why go there when there were so many other tantalizing options? Now I had a choice between places like Taco Bell, Burger King, Wendy's, Subway, Arby's.... All that yummy food and so CHEAP! I was giddy with the possibilities.

At the time, Max tried to get me to accept McDonalds into my repertoire of fast food options. It was a slow, uphill battle, and when we married he sounded even more convincing as my husband: I eventually relented and learned to love the place again.

A few weeks ago, I was at my local McDonalds all by myself. I was all alone because Max had taken the good car (the one with air conditioning and an automatic transmission) all the way to Oregon for some kind of "conference". So I was left with the other car, trapped inside the house for more than a week unless I could brave the stick shift around town. So every day, I would plan an Outing. It had to be in the morning (because of the AC situation) and it had to be within a two mile radius away from any hills (I was still shaky about the manual transmission thing).

So I landed at McDonalds for an early lunch. I ordered a hamburger and fries during a really busy lunch hour for them. So busy, in fact, that when the credit card swipey thing didn't work, they lady just told me to go sit down and enjoy my free lunch.

Wow! Food tastes so much better when it's free!

When the line had died down, I decided to treat myself to a McFlurry for dessert since I hadn't spent anything on lunch.

I ordered an Oreo McFlurry. The young white guy behind the counter punched some buttons, then asked if I wanted Ranch or Italian with that. "What, now?? No, I said I'd like an Oreo McFlurry!" So he got a cup and started filling it with.... M&Ms.

"NOOOOOOOO!" I practically shouted to him as he proceeded to mix the vanilla ice cream with it. M&M's are not at all my thing (it's a long story that involves vomit).

So he makes me an Oreo McFlurry and gives me BOTH McFlurrys since he doesn't know what to do with the other one. And that's how I got eight dollars worth of food for a little over two bucks.

Gotta love America!