Sesame Seed Buns

OK, I must come clean and fess' up...I actually took the kids to McDonald's on Monday. It is strange, it is the same feeling I had when I had been vegetarian for multiple years and started eating meat again. It feels like I am losing my religion or caving in on something very important. I am sure it must be a similar feeling to pulling the trigger for the first time when you thought you were a pacifist, or having a Cesarean birth when you planned to "go natural", or maybe even losing your virginity. Just that something you have held dear, or had value in or stuck to out of moral imperative is no longer--and maybe it feels like giving up or at the very least giving in.
My dad always claimed that he was doing more to put McDonald's out of business by taking advantage of their "senior coffee" than I was doing by boycotting their establishment. And maybe that is true. In any case, while my McDonald's Ban was induced years ago by reading Fast Food Nation, I like to view it more as a way to "vote with my dollar" than an attempt to put something out of business. And while McDonald's may not be the first or the worst fast food machine, they somehow are the very symbol of the industry and are a natural setting for a battle of wills.
I would like to say that it was an exercise in compassion for my Birthing From Within training for those who find themselves in a similar experience on the day they give birth. But it wasn't that at all. It was a case of Negotiating With A Four Year Old. We left the house an hour later than I wanted, because the Four Year Old wasn't willing to stop watching a TV show. Which then turned into 2 TV shows. Sigh. Oh well, I thought, I had other things to do anyways, and I really wasn't on a time schedule. And I am reading Naomi Aldort right now. Fine. As long as you agree that we aren't buying any snacks, we eat lunch when we get back home. Oh yes, the Four Year Old says, that would be just fine. Thank you mommy for letting me finish this show, it is my favorite show. Right. So two subways and two hours at the library later, when everyone is starving and "can't walk"...I am faced with a choice--buy lunch out or make a forced march home? I probably would have opted for the forced march, except I was already grouchy because nobody told me that I had to keep a receipt in EACH book in order to exit the library. I could not fathom why the self-check machine was spewing a receipt for each book, seemed like a waste of paper and I threw all 40 of them away...so later, after going through the garbage can on the floor of the library and uncrumpling all the little receipts and matching them up with a huge pile of books (that I had to carry home in a backpack, I might add) I conjured myself up a nice grouchy mood. And when The Four Year Old started making "gates" for his sister and hitting me and calling me a "mean mommy" since I didn't bring any snacks and he was "starving!", that was it. I led us up from the bowels of the subway and there, not two doorways away was a 3 story NYC McDonalds. And nothing else with food in sight except the ever present NY Candy/News shop. So I caved. Maya's eyes got wide with surprise. "But...we...don't...eat...there, right?" she asked questioningly, searching my face for signs of an imminent breakdown or other clue to the sudden change of heart. And then later, as we sat enjoying our burgers and fries, she said "These are *really* good burgers." Indeed...Well, if we were eating at McDonald's we were certainly going to have to go all out and get apple pies. Dirty little secret: I adore McDonald's pies. And inexplicably, you can't buy three of them. You have to buy 4. So we ate 4 pies between the 3 of us. And outside the traffic kept coming and the wind kept blowing, and life was the same as before, except now, if someone was conducting a poll, I would be one of the many Americans who would have to check the box "Yes...I ate at McDonald's once in the last week."