The un-Happy Meal

Ronald McDonald you crooked bastard! Tia, Georgie, Olive and I decided after a brief trip to the grocery store this evening, to stop by the good ole' golden arches for a little McHeartburn for supper. The date had been arranged earlier in the evening, and after a rather smooth trip through the drive-thru we parked in our once-usual spot (just adjacent to the first window as to provide us an intimate angle of the nearly robotic actions of the employee). The meal was quite nice, I dining on a juicy Double 1/4 pounder w/Cheese, and Tia opting for delight of the cheeseburger Happy Meal. Things went well, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye we were off into the high-octane world of late Thursday evening America, just another passing vessel in a sea of passing vessels.

Upon arriving at home, we decided to put together the Jungle Book toy from Tia's Happy Meal while carelessly tossing out the Happy Meal bag (a once treasured item in younger years when it was actually a box with puzzles and happy characters). The toy, which was a little tree fort with stairs and a 2 inch Ballou, appeared pretty harmless and we disregarded the small visual instruction sheet. A few moments later the construction of this tree fort was well underway, as we sprinted to the finish line of this effortless achievement. Things were going quite well, and Ballou was just about ready to emerge from his plastic caccoon. Suddenly the entire construction of the tree fort was in question, the stairs simply wouldn't connect to where the instructions suggested they would. Without words, we mutually decided to start over with the construction project. Another attempt... same results. These stairs must be defective!! How the fuck is Ballou suppose to get into his tree fort? Don't panic, let's just take this mess over to the kitchen table and take a shameful glance at the visual instructions.

Frantic moments passed, as we tried to make sense of the seemingly-simple method of construction. Nothing worked! Again and again we tried connecting the stairs. It was at this moment, perhaps 5 minutes into our pathetic attempts, that I thought about the children. Those poor inner-city kids in East LA who were out there falling victim to the same defective merchandise we were. I saw unemployed parents with short tempers causing terrible scenes in McDonald's throughout the country, maybe even the world! Cursing the toy and tossing it in the trash, laying the foundation of a sour Christmas. How could Ronald have let this happen? Was he as heartless as he suddenly seemed?

Refusing to fail, we decided the only way we were going to attach these stairs was with traditional brute force. I began working one side of the duo-sided stair case, forcing plastic pegs into holes they weren't designed to fit in, while Tia studied the logic of the instructions more thoroughly. The red plastic of the staircase connectors was quickly turning white as I forced it into the shape I thought best. A split second before its absolute breaking point, Tia stopped me with a sudden revelation into the architecture of this terrible little fort. She pointed to the diagram and spoke engineering gibberish which in my exerted haze didn't seem to make any sense. She grabbed the entire fort from my clutches and in just a few seconds had connected both staircases!! Eureka! Success!! The marvelous little item will grace our hutch for some months, until we forget its significance and reunite it with its countless other siblings who met the trash bin before being fully constructed.