McDonalds: No Longer Kid Friendly

Remember when you were a kid and going to McDonalds was a big treat? Getting a Happy Meal and a neat little toy. Running outside to climb on the Play Place equipment. Maybe even seeing Ronald McDonald.
Not anymore.

McDonalds has changed so much just in the past decade that I don't eat there anymore. Even my kids are no longer excited about McDonalds. I mention it and they are like, meh. Oh where to begin with all that went wrong? How about when they changed their menu the first time.
Happy Meals used to be a burger and fries. Or chicken nuggets and fries. Then it became a choice of fries or apple dippers. You could get a little packet of sliced apples with caramel dipping sauce. I thought this was an awesome idea! Getting my kids to eat fruit is always a hassle. Now they would order apples so they could dip them in the caramel. Kids ate the fruit, had something sweet with it; problem solved. 

Well, it was too good to be true. They changed the menu again about a year ago. You don't have a choice anymore. You get a tiny packet of fries and a tiny packet of apple slices with your Happy Meal. No more caramel. Because it's not "good for you". Umm, greasy burgers aren't good for you either but you sure as hell didn't take those off the menu! And something about these apple slices has changed. They have this gross, metallic aftertaste now. What the hell did they do to them? Like I said to my husband last night, "How do you f@ck up apple slices?"

Now we all know why this happened. Some sorry parents who don't have the "time" or "energy" to cook their kids a meal after working all day just take them to McDonalds. Every day. And then it's "Why are my kids so fat? It must be McDonald's fault!" Yes. McDonalds is totally to blame for sneaking into your house everyday and forcing their food down your children's throats. But of course, the fast food franchise has to suffer because of some dumb parents.


The toys in the Happy Meal suck now. They used to have pretty awesome themed toys that were well made and fun. Well, they still try to do TV show or movie themed toys sometimes but they straight up suck. They don't work properly or break within a matter of days. I know they are cheap and not made to last but I swear, they were not this crappy when I was younger. 

Remember when The Lion King came out and they had those toys in the Happy Meal? I still have a few. They were awesome. They did some Star Wars toys in 2011 for Clone Wars. We made sure to get lots of Happy Meals that month so the kids could get the different ones. Talk about disappointment. Bobble heads? Key chains? Yoda making a disc or some such levitate? Do you have any idea how quickly I accidentally broke the legs off the walking Chewy bobble head? Even worse was when Phantom Menace came out in 3D and they had to put out toys for that. Spinning tops. Really? How cheap is that? Grab a two cents top and slap a Star Wars sticker on it and there ya go. Wow.


So the food has gone to crap as well as the toys. Well, we can still take the kids for a burger and let them play at the Play Place. 
Nope.
In this area of NC, they are systematically tearing down McDonalds to rebuild them all to a certain spec. They all look exactly alike now. And the ones that had Play Places don't anymore. Oh no, now they have video games.
Wait a minute, I'm confused. They changed the menu because of fat kids but took away the play equipment that the kids used to run that greasy food off? Does anyone else see a problem here?
Here is a quote from the Kinston Free Press, and by the way, this is not the only location doing this:

"...new arcade style McDonalds..."
"...two interactive touch screens for children."
"...80-square-foot digital projection play area with about a dozen games where kids can kick a soccer ball, pop balloons or jump on lily pads. The games will be projected onto the floor for patrons of all ages."


Okay, I know that this is the digital age and everyone is racing to be all high tech and shit. I have nothing against arcades or video games. I LOVE video games. My kids enjoy the Wii as much as I do and it's great for a rainy day. The problem isn't that they have them so much as they replaced real play equipment with them. If it was a McDonalds that never had a Play Place to begin with, okay, that's fine. But you are telling a child that they have to eat the new, healthy menu because the old menu makes you fat and then sending them off to play a video game. 

You know who I blame for this load of horse crap: germaphobes. That's right. "The Play Place is unsanitary." "Those surfaces are covered in germs." "My child got sick from going down that slide."
You must be joking. Do these people have any idea how many germs kids pick up on a daily basis at school or home? How many surfaces did you touch just going into McDonalds and placing your order? The doorknob, the counter, the bathroom sink: these are all covered in germs. What's next, installing sliding doors everywhere so no one has to touch a doorknob ever again? These people are ridiculous. Some doctors did some studies about play equipment at restaurants and determined that there are this many of this kind of germ and this many of that. I'll bet that there are more germs in the average home on a daily basis. Even a germaphobes home. And I'm not even going to get into the fact that kids have to get sick once in a while to build up their immune system.

Basically, future generations will be forced to eat "healthy" processed food. They will have to sit and play "active" video games, alone, because going outside is too dangerous for their health and other children might get them sick. Then one day they will walk outside, touch a blade of grass and keel over from some simple sickness. 


McDonalds, making all these changes to please a few morons is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. Giving choices in your menu is one thing but you don't anymore. So you know what that super fat kid who's parents just don't care is going to do now? He's going to order three Happy Meals, eat the burgers and fries, and go stand on this floor mat and lift his arm every few minutes to pop an imaginary balloon. Then he'll have a heart attack and his parents will sue you. And you'll be changing everything all over again.