Healthy Living

I missed my train coming home tonight -- and because of it I had to wait a half an hour until the next one came. The beauty of riding the Metra (a real train) instead of the CTA (the subway) is that you sit on a clean seat with normal people around you and usually only have one or two stops until you're home (instead of 15 if we would take the Red Line). The downside is that if you're 1 minute late and the doors are closing, you don't have only 5 minutes until the next one leaves. It's usually 20, 30, 40 minutes.

So, I missed it. No big deal. I walked down to the train station's food court and looked for something to eat while waiting for the 6:39. As I walked past McDonald's, I got a bit nostalgic and I thought of Barnabas.

You see, they don't deep fry the apple pies there any more. They're baked. And while I haven't actually eaten a pie there in probably 15 years, it's the principle of the thing. My son will never get to experience this phenomenon. The odd crispiness of the crust. The scorching heat of the inner gooeyness. All gone. Ronald and his evil cadre are making my son's life less fulfilling.

You can get them elsewhere in the world (Japan, for instance). But in an attempt to serve healthier food (healthier than a McNugget? no!), they stopped cooking them in greasy goodness in 1992. That's criminal, if you ask me.

I guess this just means that as soon as his mouth is fully developed enough so that he can withstand the lava-hot filling of the deep-fried apple pie, we're going to Tokyo!

I can't think of a better reason to travel with your child, can you?