No more McDonald's for me. We're done. I have been an enthusiastic patron of Maccy D's for over 20 years, but only now have I experienced my first junk-food epiphany. As I surveyed the scene around me mid-nugget, I gradually realised that my physical surroundings were exciting feelings of shame, anger and remorse. All of which are powerful appetite suppressants. It has taken me 20 years to clock that being ensconced within a gaggle of chomping, fat weirdos is a less than ideal eating environment.
Today's McDonald's lunch actually got off to a bit of a flyer, due to public degradation of a go-getting businessman. When served, he interrupted his conference call with the marketing crew at Bosch to order a Mars flavoured milkshake. Unfortunately for this Jerry Maguire wannabe, the Warren Street McDonald's "doesn't do milkshakes". The carefully cultivated visage of the self-styled mogul slipped when he replied "what? not any kind?" The desperation clearly tangible in his plea. He tried to style it out with a nonchalant "don't worry about it" but you could tell this was a personal catastrophe, and that his afternoon had been thoroughly ruined. Later that day, the marketing crew at Bosch would be treated to a distinctly lacklustre PowerPoint presentation.
As I chuckled at the misfortune at the aforementioned Blackberry freak, my mirth was interrupted by the poorly-dressed fat man next to me requesting that Pavel from behind the counter "Whack a couple of barbecue sauce in there". This chap's voice possessed the timbre of an Essex-reared castrato, managing the difficult job of creating a noise that is both creepy, and highly irritating at the same time.
Disorientated, with ears still ringing from the highly-pitched demands of the BBQ sauce fan, I managed to sit myself down next to what appeared to be a depressing Hugh Grant-chunkalike. He bared an uncanny resemblance to what the foppish blowjob Grant would look like if his water-bloated corpse had just been fished out of the Thames. Slurping on a Fanta whilst hunched over his iPad, he loudly guffawed at the havoc wreaked as a crazed bull gored the fuck out of a gang of Spaniards.
It was only when polishing off my last nugget that I clocked that there was music playing reasonably loudly in the background. Mcdonald's have adopted a soundtrack that inoffensively masks the unsavoury din generated by fat people eating shit. The playlist is carefully constructed, utilising a selection of the blandest indie bands on the face of the earth. In this instance it was Two Door Cinema Club's "Come back home", a track in which they defiantly celebrate their own tediousness.
