Saturday Errands
If you go to McDonald’s, Mohammed said, be sure not to cross in the middle of the street, be sure to cross at the sidewalk. Police are out because of a robbery at the SunTrust Bank. Some people get up early on Saturday to run errands, like rob a bank. This Saturday, Mohammed is changing the dusty Speedy-Speedy’s oil, giving me an hour to kill. McDonald’s is the closest Rode Island Avenue can come to a coffee shop, so I head over. Crossing at the crosswalk.
And entering at the moment a woman is haggling the cashier about the soda that comes with the value meal. Five-year old children know the soda comes with the value meal. But this woman doesn’t want the soda. She is about to ride the bus, and everyone knows how the WMATA is about food on Metro bus or rail (they not as consumed with the buses arriving on time, but the I has sufficiently railed them for that failure). But since she’s paying the price of a value meal, she wants a little for meal. If she can’t get a soda, what else can she get? I think they compromise on a happy meal and some milk. But only if it wouldn’t be extra cost, she asserts.
Turning from the counter, the seats near the window look clean and inviting. It’s spring, evident even on this cranky stretch of Rhode Island Avenue near the AutoZone that’s getting a new paint job. After I spread out all my breakfast-lunch combination of a fruit cup, Quarter-Pounder with fries, two teenage girls sit flush against the window. For a moment, an image of two colored girls lunching at a sandwich counter flashes through my mind. Maybe it was the simplicity in which they went about unwrapping their burgers, dressing their fries, and start eating that nurtures this vision. A predictable moment in perhaps a predictable life…
As teenage girls, they immediately begin scanning the hall of diners where various sorts of people enjoy a McDonald’s meal. In a somewhat sociological way, I’m interested in what interests them and I listen to their conversation just to get some insight in their lives. My few years teaching alighted my curiosity to the world of DC teenagers, particularly teenage girls from neighborhoods I didn’t know.
Picking here and there at their fries, the young ladies begin a rambling conversation which fast food restaurants measure up, and determine this list: Checkers, Burger King and McDonald’s. Wendy’s are nasty and the worst of the industry’s offerings. They note this particular McDonald’s is much smaller than the McDonalds’ in Virginia, which they speak about as if they were real restaurants with impressive décor and furniture.
One of their grandmother’s works at a McDonald’s out there, the ones that are really nice (nice qualified as clean) “cause they got all those white people out there.” A few elements of their conversation I file away for future thinking but this one I think about for a moment. That their grandmother works at a McDonald’s suggests she’s still of working age, of a certain educational background and financial need. Their mother, too, must be relatively young. They mention a few more relatives who work in fast food, and I wonder if the prevalence confers to them working at a fast food joint is employment to which they should aspire.
Continuing, they talk about a woman in the McDonald’s who resembles another woman they’ve seen recently; girls they saw at the dentists who, despite being born to parents with short hair, had long curly hair down to their knees—“I lie to you not!” She emphasizes her point with a limp French fry. Obviously, length and texture of hair continue to make profound impressions on young black girls. I guess not all classes are reading “Nappy,” a children’s book that celebrates the more common texture of African American hair, in kindergarten.
Their conversation and my eaves dropping are interrupted by rising noise at the front of the…restaurant. Apparently some folks spend Saturdays fussing at McDonald’s.
“You didn’t have to curse at my son!” shouts the irate customer.
“I didn’t curse at your son,” is the cashier’s flat reply.
“He said you did!”
They go back and forth, each trying to outdo each other in noise and braggadocio, until the father steps in and shuts them both down with his bass voice, exploding belly, and ample use of four letter words to demand his @#$% food.
Sadly, my inexperience in generating public spectacle fosters an unhealthy curiosity in the urban entertainment. I crane my neck and watch as if trained by Pearl from “227.” But when the mom walks behind the counter to flip more than burgers—egged on by a third party who assures us all that the mom isn’t scared to take it outside—I start stuffing my bag with intensity.
My unofficial lunch buddies, too, start thinking it’s time to get a move on. They gather up their sodas, napkins and assorted fast food what not. (Odd no manager appears to calm the crowd).
“It’s always something going on at this McDonald’s,” one says and sips and sighs.
“We just missed the bus.” They saunter outside, and walk up the Avenue. I don’t know where they are going.
And entering at the moment a woman is haggling the cashier about the soda that comes with the value meal. Five-year old children know the soda comes with the value meal. But this woman doesn’t want the soda. She is about to ride the bus, and everyone knows how the WMATA is about food on Metro bus or rail (they not as consumed with the buses arriving on time, but the I has sufficiently railed them for that failure). But since she’s paying the price of a value meal, she wants a little for meal. If she can’t get a soda, what else can she get? I think they compromise on a happy meal and some milk. But only if it wouldn’t be extra cost, she asserts.
Turning from the counter, the seats near the window look clean and inviting. It’s spring, evident even on this cranky stretch of Rhode Island Avenue near the AutoZone that’s getting a new paint job. After I spread out all my breakfast-lunch combination of a fruit cup, Quarter-Pounder with fries, two teenage girls sit flush against the window. For a moment, an image of two colored girls lunching at a sandwich counter flashes through my mind. Maybe it was the simplicity in which they went about unwrapping their burgers, dressing their fries, and start eating that nurtures this vision. A predictable moment in perhaps a predictable life…
As teenage girls, they immediately begin scanning the hall of diners where various sorts of people enjoy a McDonald’s meal. In a somewhat sociological way, I’m interested in what interests them and I listen to their conversation just to get some insight in their lives. My few years teaching alighted my curiosity to the world of DC teenagers, particularly teenage girls from neighborhoods I didn’t know.
Picking here and there at their fries, the young ladies begin a rambling conversation which fast food restaurants measure up, and determine this list: Checkers, Burger King and McDonald’s. Wendy’s are nasty and the worst of the industry’s offerings. They note this particular McDonald’s is much smaller than the McDonalds’ in Virginia, which they speak about as if they were real restaurants with impressive décor and furniture.
One of their grandmother’s works at a McDonald’s out there, the ones that are really nice (nice qualified as clean) “cause they got all those white people out there.” A few elements of their conversation I file away for future thinking but this one I think about for a moment. That their grandmother works at a McDonald’s suggests she’s still of working age, of a certain educational background and financial need. Their mother, too, must be relatively young. They mention a few more relatives who work in fast food, and I wonder if the prevalence confers to them working at a fast food joint is employment to which they should aspire.
Continuing, they talk about a woman in the McDonald’s who resembles another woman they’ve seen recently; girls they saw at the dentists who, despite being born to parents with short hair, had long curly hair down to their knees—“I lie to you not!” She emphasizes her point with a limp French fry. Obviously, length and texture of hair continue to make profound impressions on young black girls. I guess not all classes are reading “Nappy,” a children’s book that celebrates the more common texture of African American hair, in kindergarten.
Their conversation and my eaves dropping are interrupted by rising noise at the front of the…restaurant. Apparently some folks spend Saturdays fussing at McDonald’s.
“You didn’t have to curse at my son!” shouts the irate customer.
“I didn’t curse at your son,” is the cashier’s flat reply.
“He said you did!”
They go back and forth, each trying to outdo each other in noise and braggadocio, until the father steps in and shuts them both down with his bass voice, exploding belly, and ample use of four letter words to demand his @#$% food.
Sadly, my inexperience in generating public spectacle fosters an unhealthy curiosity in the urban entertainment. I crane my neck and watch as if trained by Pearl from “227.” But when the mom walks behind the counter to flip more than burgers—egged on by a third party who assures us all that the mom isn’t scared to take it outside—I start stuffing my bag with intensity.
My unofficial lunch buddies, too, start thinking it’s time to get a move on. They gather up their sodas, napkins and assorted fast food what not. (Odd no manager appears to calm the crowd).
“It’s always something going on at this McDonald’s,” one says and sips and sighs.
“We just missed the bus.” They saunter outside, and walk up the Avenue. I don’t know where they are going.
posted by Rhonda Henderson at 11:59 AM
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