Food Digest

M&Ms McFlurry from McDonald’s.

Never as good as I want it to be. For one, those aren’t real M&Ms — they’re smaller and grittier, not smooth and creamy like the real ones. If there’d been a Dairy Queen anywhere near, I would have treated myself to a Blizzard. But hey, ice cream is ice cream. I can’t complain that much.

I picked the Missus up from a late-night class, and in exchange she offered to spring for hot fudge sundaes.

We stopped by a McDonald’s near our home. Despite the fact that only two cars were ahead of us in line, our two sundaes and large order of french fries perplexed the drive-through clerks. They took our money just fine, but when we rolled up to the window, I was offered a soda pop and a bag of food. I told the woman what I ordered, and she looked at me like I was from Mars.

She withdrew the food she had thrust at me, slammed the window and walked out of sight. Then she came back and asked me to tell her again what I ordered. I told her, and she disappeared again, after slamming the window a second time. Then she returned, and I handed her my receipt, and she looked at it in disbelief before the window snapped shut again. Then we watched as she labored to make the sundaes.

We finally got our stuff, without so much as a word to explain the problem or a simple “sorry.”

And to cap it all off, the hot fudge wasn’t hot. More like a room temperature-fudge sundae.

Lesson learned.

But hey, it’s ice cream. Can’t complain too much.

One of my top-five favorite candy bars of all time: Heath.

But it was actually my second choice of dessert tonight. I had a little time between dinner and my evening assignment, and I talked myself into driving to McDonald’s for a McFlurry. I went out of my way and everything, but when I got to the restaurant, I pulled into a parking spot and totally talked myself out of it. Headed to a Walgreens and bought a candy bar and a bottle of water instead.

I pretty much just extended my life by at least a half-hour with all the calories I just spared myself. (But, of course, you have to subtract the 25 minutes I wasted with my indecision, so it’s kind of a wash…)

As is my tradition when recovering from a cold or flu, I treated myself to the two-cheeseburgers value meal from McDonald’s for dinner. Not the healthiest thing to put in my recuperating body, but it makes me feel normal again. Gotta go back to work tomorrow.

With my election story finally filed, and at 10:15 p.m., I realized that I’d missed dinner for the second day in a row. Rather than going to bed hungry, I stopped at a McDonald’s in Evanston on my way out of town to grab a McChicken from the dollar menu. Eaten while driving with one knee.

I really wanted Thai food for dinner. As you can see, this is not Thai food. I ran out of time before my evening assignment, so I ended up getting a quick 10-piece Chicken McNugget meal from McDonald’s in Winnetka, Ill. The key to this meal, for me, is the hot mustard sauce. Let it be known. Also let it be known that this McDonald’s, in affluent and virtually crime-free Winnetka, had a security guard standing around. There must have been the threat of some white collar crime near the McFlurry machine or something.