I don’t love fast food.  I will eat it occasionally as the convenience of it arises, but I don’t seek it out.  Don’t mistake this renouncement of fast food as choosing a healthy lifestyle, good grief no.  I would just prefer to cram my gullet with food that I bought myself from a grocery store, and may have a little more luck in being able to control the cleanliness or what have you of the food that is going into my mouth.  Let’s call it a “germ” thing. 

With that said, I was forced to eat at Burger King yesterday.  If it had been up to me, I think I would have picked something else but the kids that I watch were insisting on Burger King.  

Warning:  This quick post is about to turn into a long story.

Let me clarify.  I watch a couple of kids for a few hours a day.  The mom is a teacher and the dad is a postal worker.  For the most part I pick the kids up from school in the afternoon and watch them (feed them a snack, get them started on their homework, prevent them from killing each other) until one of their parents get home.  The kids last day of school was Wednesday, the mom still had to go into work on Thursday, so she asked me if I would be able to watch the kids all day.  I, of course, said sure.  I say of “of course” because they pay generously, very very generously.

Since the kids weren’t in school anymore, and therefore were not getting recess I thought it might be nice to take them to a park to burn off some pent up energy and then take them out for lunch.  We spent half an hour at the park before the boy (who just turned eight) started having a hissy fit.  I spent another ten minutes trying to convince the girl (going on ten) that she did not actually hate her brother and that he was not going to ruin the whole day for us.  I got them to agree on a place to go for lunch, they chose Burger King.  The reason they chose Burger King was because it has “a really cool play land” and toys from the new Hulk movie.  Ok fine, who am I to argue?

We got to Burger Hell right in time for the lunch rush.  Woo hoo!  The kids wanted the Kids Meals (of course).  The boy then had another hissy fit, right in the middle of the Burger Hell because the toy in his meal was a “girl” toy (it was Betty Ross from the new Hulk movie).  I tried to get another toy, but alas they were out of everything else (yeah sure).  The kids ate their lunch without incident and then went off to play.  At which point I was able to eat my meal. 

The first bite into my burger produced a pickle, something I had asked not to be put on my Jr. Whopper.  I hate pickles, so I took the top of the bun off and removed the pickles (see, I’m not that picky, I’ll still eat it after I remove the pickles myself).  I replaced the bun and took my second bite, which yielded a hair.  A very long, and definitely not one of mine, hair.  I’m pretty sure I ordered my burger without hair too. 

The children, perhaps sensing my distress, decided that the playland was too full (there was a rather rambunctious group there) and wanted to go home and swim.  Thank the merciful heavens.  I decided that there was no point in really complaining about my meal since I would never be going back there anyway and I’m pretty sure that there was nothing they could have offered me to get me to come back.  Have no fear though, I did call the Burger King once I got the kids back to the house and into the pool, to complain about the hair in my food.  I did want them to be aware of the situation just because it is incredibly disgusting, and they tried to offer me a voucher for a free meal.  I did my best not to laugh at them.

The boy was still complaining about his “girl” toy when we got to the house and I did my best to insist to him that he wouldn’t even remember this crappy toy an hour from that moment because he has way cooler stuff and besides, they are going to Disney World next week.  He said no, he didn’t and that next week was like 80 days away.  I once again did my best not to laugh.  Needless to say, an hour later he forgot that we had been at Burger King and his sister inherited a back up Betty Ross. 

I on the other hand, am still having nightmares about the hair in my burger.  It was just soooo long.  *Shudders*