Please Don’t Spit On My Fries.

Why do kids always have to pee when you’re alone with them in the middle of a restaurant in the middle of lunch? If it’s a kid place, like “Windy’s” as Minion #1 calls it, and we get up to pee, odds are someone will throw out our food while we’re in the potty (They have decent service). Or spit on it (People are fucked up). But in today’s world, you can’t send a 7-year-old into a public bathroom alone, nor can you leave a 5-year-old happily eating what passes for chicken at these pseudo-food factories, either.

It's a food-like substance. It counts. And they think I'm cool. For five minutes.

Before y’all start jumping on me for A) being overprotective, or B) letting my minions eat McFood, let me first say this, web dwellers. Haters gonna hate. I just had to say that once. And you know what? It definitely sounds as stupid when I say it as it does when I hear other people say it. So I won’t say that again. And you shouldn’t either. Anyway. If you’re a “hater,” kindly go do that shit somewhere else, please. Be gone, haterific trolling flamers (Not the good type of “flamers.” I like you year-round-Disney-pass-owning, Justin-Beiber-downloading, single, kid-less, self-proclaimed flamers. Y’all kick ass and I love the shit out of you. I’m talking about the web flamers, and they suck. And not in a good way.)

The rest of you, this is what I have to say about letting kids eat the occasional French fry: Fries and “chicken” nuggets are for kids what martinis and cheesecake are for adults. That is, they’re completely unnecessary in theory, but somehow they’re also totally essential for a happy life. My minions eat organic cheese from happy, organic cows and get free-range chicken grown without hormones or steroids or rap music exposure, and they drink arsenic-free $6-a-piece organic fruit juice boxes from apples picked by organic-cotton-gloved virgin Israelites on blessed, untainted land in Jerusalem. They somehow live static-free lives despite my refusal to coat their clothes in toxins via dryer sheets, and they get slathered in $12-a-bottle PABA-free, allergen-free, aiuhpiuasf-free sunblock every summer because if they’re going to have their skin anointed with chemicals all day to avoid skin cancer, we should avoid sunblocks that have chemicals in them that cause cancer. Otherwise, what the fuck is the point? And no, aiuhpiuasf isn’t a thing. Just checking to see if you’re paying attention.

In short, I am “that mom.” I am trying to feed my kids healthy foods and use healthy products on a budget without having them be the weird kids in cruelty-free Birkenstocks with organic llama-hair rainbow knee-socks and German-import lunchboxes. And that means learning moderation. We eat the good, healthy stuff 95% of the time. We get treats 5% of the time. So, yeah. My kids eat McDonalds’ chicken-free chicken nuggets and fries in the funky red boxes. And they fucking love it. And they’re healthy. But I still won’t let them have soda because caffeine is for Mommy. Period.

As for Part A: the overprotective mom who won’t let her 7-year-old pee alone? Let me tell you, web dwellers. Last week, I read a story about a 13-year-old kid who raped a 5-year-old girl in one of those giant hamster maze play areas at a fast food place last year. It’s not just freakshow pedophiles in trench coats we have to worry about anymore. Other fucking kids are dangerous now. Yeah, I know it’s a one in a million deal. Odds are there aren’t any predatory nutjobs right this moment, right in this bathroom. But there is one in a bathroom somewhere, and you can’t un-ring that fucking bell, people.

I may seem overprotective to some, and that’s fine with me. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t give a high-flying trapeze of a fuck what people think of me, especially when it has to do with how I raise my kids. Because, honestly, they are MY responsibility, and they are mobile little pieces of my soul walking around making goofball kid decisions. My own happy little oblivious horcruxes. So, when it comes to my own little minions, there is no such thing as overprotective. Short of moving to the middle of Amish country and locking them in a tower with nothing but an organic farm to sustain them, there’s very little I won’t do to protect my kids from this fucked up, crazy, whack-a-doodle-infested world we’re living in. Except stop taking them to McDonald’s, because we all need some of Ronald’s fries once in a while. Including Mommy.

But they DO have a lot of pictures of Eric Northman...so I joined.

So, there we are, in the middle of “Windy’s,” (damn, that was a long tangent), and Minion #1 has to pee. Well, shit. Our food is hot, our drinks are cold, and we could not be sitting further from the potty. What to do? I scan the room. SCORE. Right behind us, a mom. A non-frazzled, not-overly-distracted, friendly looking mom who has only as many kids as she had hands. Oh. Manicured hands. A mom who pays attention to detail. Shit. Her hair’s done all cute. And she’s smiling while her kid happily eats the kid meal with apples without begging for fries. Oh, damn, dude. She’s probably one of those moms who makes daily art projects with her kids, then posts her commercial-quality step-by-step photo instruction blog about each project on Pinterest. I fucking hate those women. But she’s a mom, and I’ll take what I can get.

Me: Excuse me, would you mind watching our food?

Normal person: Watching your food?

Me: Yes, well, we need to pee and you look normal. You know, like you wouldn’t spit in our food.

Normal person: Why would someone spit in your food?

Me: Well, you know, or throw it out. You wouldn’t throw it out.

Normal person: If you’re done, I think you’re supposed to throw out your own things here and put the tray away.

Me: No, I mean, if we go to the potty, you wouldn’t accidentally throw out our unfinished food before we got back.

Normal person: Of course not. I don’t work here.

Me: Right, that’s why I said, you know, you wouldn’t spit in our food. The throwing it away part is more for someone who works here.

Normal person: Uh huh.

Me: So, would you please watch our food while we go use the potty?

Normal person: Please go away.

Me: I’ll take that as a “yes.” Come on, minions.

So we walked to the potty together, and Minion #1 said to me through the closed stall door (you know, I do allow privacy, just not privacy for psychos), “Mommy, that lady thinks you’re crazy. She looked at you like you had a zombie head like in Plants vs. Zombies. Braaaaains. Braaaaaaaaains…”

Braaaaaaaaiiiinnnnnsssss....

I don’t know about y’all, but zombie humor cracks my shit up. So I said, “Braaaaains. Eat braaaains!!!” and Minion #2 about peed on the floor laughing, and then all three of us had to pee, and finally we were all done laughing like maniacs and got our hands washed up and walked out of the potty without touching anything (ick), and headed back to our table only to find that our new friend and her two progeny had fled the premises, presumably so we wouldn’t eat their brains, but our food was right where we’d left it and you can bet your booty my minions chowed down like a couple of zombie lawnmowers.

And there you have it. That’s how much I love my minions. I’m willing to have people think I’m a crazy lunatic and eat overpriced, cold food(-like substances) no one spit on (that I can tell) even though I have this irrational fear of something weird happening to my unattended food. So please, let me have my moments at McDonald’s being a cartoon zombie with my kids. They’re only going to think I’m funny for a little while longer. And if we ask, please watch our nuggets, and don’t spit on my fries. Thanks.