My Mother’s Day Mustardgate at McD’s

 Little did I know that today James would prove himself to be my knight in cargo pants and Skechers. Because we were out of milk and a couple other items, we decided to go to McDonald’s for lunch. I order the grilled chicken club combo.
After getting to my seat, I realized I’d forgotten to ask for some honey mustard sauce. So I went up the counter and asked the guy (who looks like he’s a team leader or something) if I could have a honey mustard. He asked me what I’d ordered and I told him.

Dumb McD’s guy: “Oh, it doesn’t come with it, so I’m going to have to charge you for the sauce.”

Me: “What? I come here all the time and have never been charged for the sauce!”

Dumb McD’s guy:”Well, ma’am, it’s for the chicken nuggets, and the sauce doesn’t go with what you ordered.”

Me: “But I get this all the time and have never been charged for the sauce before.”

Me: “Forget it!” I huffed and walked away in amazed anger.

The guy became very defensive and repeated that my sandwich already has its own sauce on it, and so if I want more he’ll have to charge me for it.

(Let me just add that I often go to this very same McD’s, get the McChicken and honey mustard and have NEVER been charged for it. In fact, I’m sometimes given more than one.)

Naturally, this upset me to no end. Now, I’ve never had an irrational or outwardly emotional outbreak since I’ve gotten pregnant. On the contrary, my pregnancy has been pretty smooth sailing hormone-wise. But as I sat down at the booth today and told James what had happened, I found myself getting teary-eyed! I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown over a tub of honey mustard?

I picked up the bun of my sandwich and saw the big glob of mayo right in the center and my anger flared up again. I took my sandwich to the counter and said in a very controlled voice,

“Please, may I have a honey mustard?”

The guy put it on the counter and said,

“It doesn’t go with what you ordered.”

I grabbed the tub and snapped back,

“Exactly! That’s why I wanted one!”

As I walked away with my prize, the guy yelled,

“But I’m going to have to charge you for it!”

I got back to our booth and found it empty. I thought James had gone to the bathroom in embarrassment or something. At this point, people in the restaurant were giving me funny looks, but I didn’t care. I was so damned focused on getting my honey mustard fix that everything else seemed unimportant!

I looked up at the front counter and noticed James talking briefly to the guy and as he moseyed back he looked a bit satisfied. He saw me opening my treasured sauce and said,

“Oh, you got one.” So I told him what happened. He grinned and nodded, as if to say, “Yeah, that’s my wife!”

I asked him about his conversation with the guy and he smiled and recounted his little chat. It boiled down to this: James asked him about the honey mustard, and the guy gave him a lecture about how the sauces are specifically for the chicken nuggets so if he wanted one he’d have to charge for it. So then James replied,

“You know, can’t you just let her have one? I mean, it’s Mother’s Day, and she’s pregnant.” There was a girl cleaning the trays behind the counter next to him, and when James said that, her face puckered up in an “ooooooh, snap!” expression and the guy behind the counter shut up really quick.

James then said,

“That’s all I have to say, so enjoy your miserable little life now,” as he smiled, waved him off, and came back to our table.

This Mustardgate was way more interesting with a much more satisfying outcome, don’t you think?

The culprit of this fiasco.

Raising a Successful, Independent Child

This article answers the question of whether we should push our children to succeed. How much is too much? Where do we stop? At the end of the article are a few tips on how you can help your child become a successful, independent person.

See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1572056/raising_a_successful_independent_child.html

A-peeing I will go!

Ok, so that title is kind of gross, but I’ve never been one to shrink from bodily function jokes.  Hell, I fell in love with Jim “Talks Out of His Ass” Carrey after the first Ace Ventura movie.  So yeah, a-peeing I will go, and continue to go…every other hour…

And it turns out it’s not just pregnancy that’s causing my frequent trips to the potty.  It’s the dreaded UTI.  Apparently, they’re common in the first trimester and so now I’m doubly forbidden from drinking anything caffeinated or carbonated.  Ok, I can handle the non-caffeine, but no carbonation?  ARRRRRRRGGGHH.  I love the feel of carbonation in drinks, and so I’m going to have to bite the bullet on this for at least a week until my medication is completed.  

Before the CNM (certified nurse midwife) finally got through to us, I was imagining all sorts of horrific scenarios after James told me about her messages.  What’s wrong with me?  Is it cancer?  Is it something that could harm the baby?  Oh my god!  I’m going to die!!!!!!!!  I don’t normally panic outwardly.  Usually, I relegate my panic attacks to the darkened bedroom while huddled beneath the covers, crying silently for my (now) limited time on earth, because surely, the CNM wouldn’t have called only two days after my lab tests unless it was absolutely life-threatening, right?  Of course not!  

But no, she had to go and ruin my sense of doom and inform us that it’s just a UTI and I need to drink lots of cranberry juice and lay off the caffeine and carbonation.  What a crappy denoument.  All that worry, and for what?  A urinary tract infection.  And James was hedging his bets on Bubonic Plague! Oh well, at least I’ll still be alive after treatment’s completed, so there’s that bright spot!

I just hate having to take medications on a time-table because I inevitably forget or sleep through the hour at which I’m supposed to pop a pill.  Why, just this morning, I slept through my 8:30am dose and didn’t wake up until 11:15.  Since I’d awakened a few times to pee (stumbling half asleep into the bathroom, and then tripping through doorways back into bed, only to find the cat had usurped my pillow, so my head landed on his midsection),  I couldn’t tell if I’d sleepily dosed myself and forgotten, so I had to count how many pills were left before I concluded that I was three hours late taking one.  

And just as a side note: Smith, the cat, is so damned lazy, that once he’s in a spot he likes, even my head on his belly isn’t enough motivation to get him to move.  He stayed there, under my head, for several minutes, purring.

 

 

Yes, that is my pillow he's on.