But if they called them Sad Meals, the kids wouldn't buy 'em.

One of the residents on my unit loves toys. When he gets a new toy, he always asks, "Is that for me?" followed by "Is it all mine?" followed by "So I better not break it?" and will then carry the toy around for a week and show everyone he sees.

This resident was having a particularly lousy day, so on my break, I went to McDonald's and purchased a Happy Meal. It took the army of employees they had a good 10 minutes to provide me with the Happy Meal, and I kept thinking "If I were an angry 7 year old, this would be a recipe for disaster." Then I sat down to eat my Happy Meal, and found that the fools had neglected to add a toy to my Happy Meal. Worse, there was still a line back almost to the door, so I couldn't very well get my Happy Meal toy without pushing my way to the front of the line.

Now, the whole time I'm waiting in line, I keep trying to convince myself that there are plenty of reasons why someone like me would be buying a Happy Meal. Perhaps I have a child and will give him a toy when I get home. Perhaps I'm a toy collector, as I have known people with pretty sweet collections of old Happy Meal toys. Perhaps I'm a Psychiatric Attendant attempting to do something nice for a resident. But I still get a lot of weird looks from everyone when I order the Happy Meal, and then a whole lot more when I come back up to the counter to complain about how I did not get a toy with my Happy Meal.

Then they give me a toy. It's a toy American Idol iPod. And it doesn't work. It's supposed to play music, but it doesn't, so instead of a toy iPod, I now have a small white plastic rectangle with a clip on it. This was, without a doubt, the saddest Happy Meal in history.

Also, I would write about my trip tonight, but I have a date, with Jeff. We're going to watch Fargo since he has never seen it and loves The Big Lebowski. I'll write some on it tomorrow night.