the apple doesn't fall far from the french fries

irrelevant photos taken by julie

before happy meals were deemed a childhood death sentence, my mother use to take me for one sparingly as a treat. i really loved those happy meals. between the useless toy, the salty fries, and those little nuggets of chicken divinity- dipped in honey, always- happy meals made me happy. all was right with humanity when i was eating those chicken nuggests.

starting at a very young age, not much came between me and french fries, as is still the case. (take one of my five guys french fries and you'll get stabbed.) as i got a little older and more territorial and greedy  aware, i started to notice that my happy little french fries began disappearing faster than i was consuming them. the dirty culprit? my mother. when i asked her why she was a dirty-grubby-french-fry-stealing-no-good thief, she reasoned that she was 'eating all of the bad ones so that i didn't have to.' oh! well that changes things. i take back what i said, you wonderful, beautiful, martyr-mama, you.

i instantly became suspicious as to why mcdonald's didn't inspect their french fries more closely. where was their quality control? why did MY mother have to eat all of the bad french fries? and why did they put all of the bad fries in MY happy meal and not in with her quarter pounder with cheese? did mcdonald's hate me? what if it's a huge conspiracy? what about all of the other mamas and kids who were bound to be dealt bad french fries because of mcdonald's careless happy meal preparation? it was my duty to figure this mystery out and save everyone from this tragedy.

so, i began inspecting these so-called 'bad french fries.' i needed to know what made these salty potato sticks so inherently evil that my mother would be forced to eat them to save me from their barbarity. the only evidence that i could gather was that they tended to be the longer, crispier, saltier fries out of the little paper-bag bunch.

'was my mother saving me from bloat?' my four-year-old self wondered.

it was a mystery that plagued me for years. until one day, it hit me. there was nothing at all bad about my fries. nothing evil or corrupt or poisonous about them at all. ronald mcdonald would never let a less than spectacular french fry come out of his double golden arched kingdom.

it turns out that my sweet mother was just as serious about french fries as i was. she was just smarter. and apparently more devious. SHE. WAS. EATING. MY. DELICIOUS. SALTY. LONG. FRENCH. FRIES. BECAUSE. SHE. COULD. EAT. MY. DELICIOUS. SALTY. LONG. FRENCH FRIES.

what is the point of this story, you may ask? well, yesterday, as i was feeding marlo a box of annie's organic white cheddar macaroni and cheese, she signed that she'd like some more. well, i took a few bites before giving her one. she replied with an angry grunt, clearly agitated that i was eating her delicious annie's organic white cheddar macaroni and cheese. even though she couldn't understand me, i reasoned with her that i was just eating the 'bad bites.'

i stopped dead in my dirty-grubby-macaroni-and-cheese-stealing-no-good-thief tracks.



apparently, the apple doesn't fall far from the french fries.