Emmet

emmett

I was off work yesterday because it was President’s Day.

So, after I took Nate to preschool, I ran some errands.

When I picked him up, it was close to lunch time…so we went to McDonalds.

I’m not a fan of McDonald’s, but Nate likes the Happy Meals…so we went to McDonalds.

The kids ( the older kids…Sparrow stayed with us) went to see the Lego movie this weekend…and Nate had been to McDonalds the week before and had gotten the Happy Meal with the Lego Batman 3-D cup in it, so he was pretty jacked about getting another cool cup for the collection he’d just started.

” We have Wyldstyle and UniKitty.”

Nate wanted MetalBeard.

“I DON’T WANT WYLDSTYLE!!!! I DON’T WANT UNIKITTY!!!”

(Those two are “girl cups”.)

“Well….we need to go then. They don’t have MetalBeard. They’re out of that one.”

“I DON’T WANT TO GO!! I WANT METALBEARD!!”

Geeeershhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So I did the only thing I could do. I went to another McDonalds.

“We have Unikitty and WyldStyle….let’s see….we have a Batman….and we have Emmett. We have a Batman….an Emmett…”

The guy behind the counter was looking through all the cups for us.

” How about MetalBeard?” Nate asked.

“They don’t have that one. The man said that they have Emmet. How about Emmet?”

“Who’s Emmet?”

“Emmet is the one with the hard hat” I told him.

So of course he needed to run over to the sign and look, with a bunch of people waiting behind us in the line.

After studying the picture for a while, he said, “YEAH!!! EMMET’S GOOD!!!”

Emmet was acceptable.

Whew.

So we got the Happy Meal and sat down and Nate started to eat.

( Interesting…to me at least…aside. Did you know that a Big Mac, that seems to have either gotten a lot smaller or my hands have gotten a lot bigger over the years, is three dollars and seventy nine cents now? Holy Smokes…what a ripoff.)

“Where’s my milk?” he asked….after we’d sat down and he’d started to eat.

“They forgot to give it to you. Stay right there…don’t move…I’ll be right back.”

“Do you have some milk? You didn’t put it in the Happy Meal.”

“White or Chocolate?”

“White” I answered, and when they gave it to me, I brought it back to Nate and all was right in the world….after I scraped the onions that weren’t supposed to be on his burger off, and after I’d frantically wiped enough of the mustard that wasn’t supposed to be on there off with my napkin that it was hard to see the yellow anymore. I should have just ordered another hamburger for him….but I wasn’t comfortable leaving him alone.

It takes Nate longer to eat his really little hamburger than it takes me to eat my really little BigMac, so I started to clean up before he was done.

I picked up all the trash on the table and left what he was still working at eating with him…and threw away what I could before we left.

He ate for a while…and then he said, “Where’s the lid for my milk?”

“I threw it away. Did you need it?! Why would you need it? Just drink your milk and we’ll go.”

“I NEEEEEEED MYYYY LIDDDD!!!! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED IT! GET IT!! GET IT!!!”

Total instantaneous freakout.

What the heck?

“Just drink your milk and we’ll go…you just have a little left…just drink that and we’ll go home and see Mommy.”

” I DON’T WANT MY MILK!! I DON’T WANT IT!!! I NEED MY LID!!! MY LID!!! I DON’T WANT MY MILK!!!”

I tried being reasonable. It wasn’t working.

So… I’m not going to dig in the trash for the stupid lid….that’s gross, and I’m not going to put a dirty lid on his milk…and when I haul him out of there, it’s escalated to the point where it’s getting pretty uncomfortable.

I just want to get out of that McDonalds that I didn’t want to go to in the first place.

I didn’t want to go to ONE McDonalds. I sure didn’t want to go to TWO McDonalds.

On our way out, Nate crying in my arms, me holding the Happy Meal box and the cup in the hand not holding onto a crying boy, on our way through the door of the Walmart McDonalds…. Nate says, “I NEED MY MILK!! I NEED IT.”

So we go back through the McDonalds…through the throngs of curious people who were probably wondering why a Daddy would let a 4-year-old “be the boss of him”…. and get the milk that I left on the table when we did my walk of shame…and he finishes it out by the Redbox kiosk….and then he throws the empty container away…without the lid.

Thank goodness that Emmet was acceptable or we might have really had some problems at the McDonalds.

About Peter Rorvig

I'm a non-practicing artist, a mailman, a husband, a father...not listed in order of importance. I believe that things can always get better....and that things are usually better than we think.

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