Every Wednesday afternoon we have a choice. The older three have choir for an hour at our church, and that leaves just the littles and me. Sometimes we run errands, sometimes we hang out in the van outside the church, and sometimes we visit the McDonald’s playland down the road.
My girls clamor for the third option, not surprisingly, every single time.
Yesterday was different. I was meeting some of the other mothers in the basement of the church. The reason, besides having another few grownups with whom to visit? We are preparing to make the total consecration to Mary together. This is the same consecration that I made in October, and I am happy to be making it again with my dear friends. It’s not like I don’t need it.
I also needed a diet coke yesterday. I needed this diet coke badly, as if my life (or at the very least, my consciousness) depended on its fizzy brown caffeinated goodness. Since Felicity had fallen asleep on the way to choir, I decided on the McDonald’s drive-through.
Big mistake.
Angela was instantly alert. “Is that McDonald’s? We’re going to McDonald’s? I want a happy lunch, Mommy! Today you gave us macaroni and cheese and that was not a happy lunch. I want a McDonald’s happy lunch!”
Mommy was mean. She got her diet coke and kept on going.
Now I found this to be both an amusing exchange and an enlightening one. I was amused at Angela’s vernacular, of course, her demanding a “happy lunch” instead of a “happy meal.” But I was also struck by the very clever (and subliminal) marketing of those words.
Happiness comes in a box! How very handy!
Well, go McDonald’s. They know full well what they are doing and have long had some of the most effective (if not healthful) advertising around. You’ve seen the movie Super Size Me perhaps? There is a scene in which children are shown pictures of famous figures. Very few of them recognize Jesus, as depicted in this ubiquitous painting. However, they all knew Ronald McDonald.
As I sat with my friends discussing Louis de Montfort’s love of God and devotion to Mary, I sipped on my drink and considered this. De Montfort knew the source of true and lasting happiness, and he didn’t look for it at a restaurant. (Did they even have restaurants in those days? No matter.) I thought about how he was preaching at about the same time that St. Margaret Mary received the apparitions of the Sacred Heart, in which Jesus told her that He was sorrowful because of our coldness and indifference.
That was over 300 years ago, and our human ways have not really changed. To this day He is treated with coldness and indifference…
…and obviously, that makes me so not happy.
It’s still Lent, my friend. Let us continue to make it count.
Ad Jesum per Mariam,
“Mommy was mean. She got her diet coke and kept going.”
I love that! Glad to hear someone else does that sometimes.
For those of us who gave up diet coke for lent, you COULD have put a warning of the mouth watering description of this particular drink!
Great post!! We are a worldy people, aren’t we?
Beautiful written. I love reading Catholic blogs and I love knowing Jamie because then I dont feel like I am the only one who thinks this way.
Very interesting story. I think you’re right on the mark with the messaging to our kids… but I have to say, take a step back and look at the Mommy version of “happiness in a box”… why you went to McD’s to begin with. You were convinced that a diet coke was what you needed at that moment, too! Maybe the problems are even deeper rooted in our American psyche than it appears!
Comments?
You’re right, Josh. It does seem like a double standard on my part.
A stronger person than myself would have forgone the pleasure (and the caffeine) of that diet coke.
This is a wonderful post, and I do enjoy all your writing! Although I do not want to get into the comments about “happiness in a box” I did want to share with you my kids latest “Happy Meal.” http://tenkidsandadog.blogspot.com/2008/03/happy-meal-photo-essay.html
Not to exclude myself! My addiction is also to caffeine – usually coffee, sometimes a soft drink.
There’s a physiologic part of the need for caffeine, too… there’s a very real basis to the craving one feels for diet pepsi. Sometimes I when I don’t drink my share of coffee, I get withdrawal headaches which are a KILLER, and I take a caffeine pill with my motrin. But the marketing behind Coca Cola, Pepsi and the other soft drinks is just as insiduous as McDonalds. You NEED this soft drink to be happy, and happiness is delivered with the soft drink.