We got out and about last Sunday morning, excited to be going to Sunflower Garden Center to find some further inspiration for our garden and courtyard. The weather was beautiful and on our way there, we made a pit stop at the nearest fast food place – McDonald’s. You should never go shopping on any empty stomach – that especially applies when going grocery shopping, but also shopping in any other form for us as well. You see, when my blood sugar drops, I become a very unpleasant person. And with all the people that turn up at a place like this garden center, having me get cranky with a shopping cart as a weapon is a very bad idea.

We thought we could just jump in and out of McDonald’s in Bad Vilbel. There were only 3 other cars in the parking lot and it turned out that they had just as many employees working as there were customers. We figured this was a good thing.

McDonald’s is constantly coming up with strange burgers over here and they put everything from cream cheese to tater tots on a burger to get you to buy it. Who cares if it actually tastes good in the end – just sell it. We have decided to boycott all of these strange specialty burgers – any time we have have been brave enough to try one, we almost immediately regretted it. They’ve gotten equally creative with their breakfast here in Germany, serving things like a Country McGriddle which is a pancake roll with sausage and egg on it. I kinda see where they were going with that but perhaps you’d like to try the McMuffin Fresh Chicken – a breaded chicken patty on an English muffin with lettuce, tomato and cheese? They have a sausage version of this too if you’d prefer.

Needless to say, we like to stay with the food we know is “safe” so we just get burgers. We actually always liked McDonald’s breakfast but they don’t serve the most essential part of the breakfast meal here: the hash browns. I could seriously eat my weight in those things. McMuffins are just not the same without hash browns. They sell every other weird sort of potato concoction but not hash browns. I think Germans would actually love them and you need the hash brown for it to be a meal. Two McMuffins are too much, one isn’t enough. You NEED that hash brown. But no. So we were stuck ordering a McMuffin and a McCrossant each.

I went to grab a booth with Mack who was mostly sleeping in her car seat and Stefan finished up at the counter. When he came to sit down finally, he brought a tray with two drinks…and a number. Invisible food sure is good!

So we sat and waited. Five minutes passed and an employee came out with a tray of food. He walked right past us and distributed all the food to the two couples who’d been standing in line in front of us. At least we were next…

Five minutes later, the employee came out again with another tray of food and after a pit stop at another table, he brought the tray to us. Three of the four sandwiches were there – just my Sausage McMuffin was missing.

So we ate and a guy brought more food to the table behind us – who had ordered after us. He noticed our little number and asked if we were still waiting on something. Yup, we told him, a McMuffin Sausage & Egg (they reverse the order here just for fun.)

We’d been there for 15 minutes now and were finished with the food they’d brought, starting to get a little antsy because the car seat wasn’t moving which meant Mack was waking up. A girl walked over with a tray and a McMuffin. Sweet. So I grab the thing and start unwrapping – and find a McMuffin Fresh Chicken inside. Sorry but I’m not feeling brave this morning.

I jumped up out of the booth and walked over to the counter.

“Excuse me. I ordered a Sausage McMuffin. This is something else.”

The girl who had just brought the McMuffin over stared blankly at me, then looked to the McCafe employee who had brought all of our other food out. He comes over and asks what is wrong.

“I ordered a Sausage McMuffin. This is chicken.”

Another blank stare. Awesome.

From the kitchen I hear people yelling, “It’s chicken. It’s chicken.” One of them had on the tell-tale white manager’s shirt.

“Yes, I can see that. But that’s not what I ordered.” More blank stares. “Look. I’ve been waiting here almost 20 minutes for my food. My daughter is starting to cry. Can I just have my money back?”

“What? scoffed the manager from the kitchen. “Impossible. The egg is almost done.” End of conversation. No sorry about the wait, can we maybe rectify the problem somehow, want a free cup of coffee? I was an idiot because I was the customer and I HAD to be overreacting. No matter that the time stamp on my receipt said 10:53 and it was now 11:09.

So I sat…and I waited. For another 5 minutes. Apparently the 20 minutes I threw out at them was some sort of prophecy. They did bring the sandwich closed up in a bag so I could take it along – but I’m not sure if that was just a strategy to get me out of the restaurant before I caused a scene or what. Unfortunately the McMuffin didn’t taste nearly as good as I remembered as a scarfed it down in the car – maybe it was all the spit that they must have put in it.

I really don’t know why employees treat customers like dirt here. They have clearly never heard the saying, “The customer is king.” But after all we’ve been through at that McDonald’s (yes, there are other less colorful stories but I won’t bore you) I think we’ve finally had enough. We don’t even like McDonald’s that much – it just happened to be close. So I will not be setting foot in that restaurant again. Fast food is no longer fast food to them and their food has been lacking in love for a very long time now. So to keep myself from going galactic when something else happens in there (as I’m sure it will), I will just avoid the establishment altogether.

What’s your favorite fast food sin? I wish we had Sonic here or Wendy’s – but I guess we’ll just have to move back to the States to enjoy those little morsels of heaven. 🙂