McDonald's Milk: A Sucky Operation

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

Rosie and I are both currently seventy-seven years of age, and both painfully aware that we are getting too old for road trips.   Comfort is a prime consideration, and long hours crammed in a car are definitely hard on tired old bodies.   Closely related to that is the necessity of eating and making comfort stops.   Any stop extends te total time on the road.  Comfort stops can't be helped, but time can be saved by packing meals or using drive-thru lanes and fast food joints.

So on the road, Rosie and I eat way too much junk food when we would rather be home eating healthier.

Today got off to an ugly start due to an encounter with road food.  We are spending a couple of days with my son and his family in the Kansas City area, and this morning, being the first ones up, my little dog and I decided to go into town and get a bag of breakfast sandwiches for the family to have as they began waking up and coming downstairs.  There are several options close by, and this time I chose the local McDonalds.  The service was friendly, the order correct, and we took our bag of breakfast and headed home.

I always order a carton of white milk with breakfast on the road to coat my stomach before I consume a greasy sausage or bacon burger, and, up until today, the milk had come in a small, round, plastic bottle with a screw top lid.   But that didn't happen this morning   I received  the milk in a rectangular carton that had a very small circle of foil hear the top with the words "insert straw here."  The foil circle was significantly smaller than the diameter of the only straw that I received - the one for my other drink, an unsweet iced tea.

Oh bother!

When we got back to Tim and Erin's, I worked at getting the small carton of milk open.  I couldn't get the top of the carton to unfold and open up, and if I had succeeded milk, would have undoubtedly gone everywhere.  The thought occurred to me that the carton was probably designed for one of those hard little straws that used to come with fruit juice boxes, but they had not included one of those with my order.   I dug through the kitchen drawers looking for some sort of sharp knife, but never found the knife drawer.  (Maybe they hide the knives when I visit!)   Finally, however, I did locate the perfect instrument for the job - a corkscrew!

I inserted the tip of the corkscrew into the tiny foil circle, gave it a turn or two, and wall-ah!  Soon I was standing at the sink with the milk carton held above my upturned mouth, squirting a small stream of delicious milk across my parched tongue and down my thirsty throat.  It was almost like drinking straight from the cow - and we've all been there before, right?

McDonalds, and all you other roadside grease pits, if something works, leave it the hell alone!  Go back to those convenient, easy-to-open, round plastic bottles,  When I'm roaring down the road at a hundred-and-fourteen-miles-an-hour, I need something that I can open with one hand and my teeth.  I don't have the luxury of being able to slow down to eighty in order to dig through the glovebox looking for my Swiss Army knife!

Safety first, Ronald, safety first!