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On the subject of Happy Meal toys and my gullibility

Written by: Erik Hagen

As a blogger, my subject cup runneth over as of late. Sitting down to write this entry, there is no shortage of good, interesting, humorous subjects that I can write about. There’s Rick Perry’s inability to remember a list of anything longer than two subjects, or the bottomless pit that is the well of humor that is Herman Cain. Or there’s Ashton Kutcher abandoning his Twitter feed because he didn’t follow the news close enough to know that he was protesting the firing of a football coach who was protecting a child molester.  Any or all of these would make for a very good subject for a blog.

So, here’s an anecdote.

I’m driving my daughter to my mother’s house yesterday to drop her off so she can watch her while I attend a meeting at work. It was right around lunchtime, and I decided this would be a good opportunity to bribe my daughter in order to get her into the car. I do this by saying we’ll stop at McDonald’s to get her lunch, and she can get a Puss In Boots toy.

“Puss In Boots toy!” she responds.

So my plan succeeds and she’s in the car and I’m quite pleased with myself for being a genius. I get to the drive-thru, order her a Happy Meal, and she wants her Puss In Boots toy right there and then. So I dig it out and it’s an egg. An egg that is somehow a man, with a man’s face. Now, when you tell a two-year-old that she’s going to get a Puss In Boots toy, she doesn’t expect that she’s going to get a Humpty Dumpty toy. She expects the Antonio Bandaras cat, because everybody loves that cat with his suave attitude and enjoyable latin accent. That’s Puss In Boots. An egg with a face is not Puss In Boots. So, needless to say, she is not pleased with it or with me.

Finding myself in a pickle of my own making, I then begin the process of brainstorming out loud ways in which I may get myself out of said pickle. Which is when I come up the spectacular idea of going back to McDonald’s and getting a new toy. “New Puss In Boots toy!” says my daughter. She’s onboard. But I don’t have time to go back then and there, so I tell her we’ll go and get her a new toy when we go back home after my meeting. She grudgingly agrees to the plan the way that a two-year-old agrees to anything, by opting not to have a tear-fueled meltdown in the back seat of my car.

So I drop her off and she eats her “food” from McDonald’s, except for about a third of her cheeseburger, which I eat after I have my mom scrape the onions off of it. I’m 33 years old, by the way. She also chews on the egg man, because while he is an unacceptable toy with his unnatural man face on an egg body, he is still quite pleasant on the gums. Then I drive to my meeting, it is long and boring, and I come back to get here. First words when I see her, “I get new toy now?” Thus, fails my fail-proof plan of her forgetting all of the promises that I ever make her. Thus, off to McDonald’s we go.

I get to the drive-thru, second time today, hoping they won’t remember me. Because I really have no desire to be known as the guy who goes to McDonald’s twice a day. I ask the lady at the speaker if they have more than one Puss In Boots toy. She asks me to repeat the question, as there is currently a custodian power washing the drive thru with his power washer. I scream the question at her. She has yes, they have four different toys. Are any of them the Antonio Bandaras cat, I query. Yes, she replies. I will take that cat, I tell her, also some ice cream. Because that’s one of the things that unite my daughter and I, us both liking ice cream.

So I get my big order of a small plastic toy, two ice cream cones, and a three dollar donation to the Ronald McDonald House, because I don’t like having money. I get the toy, turn around to place it in the hands of my daughter, certain I will now be her hero and the greatest person she has ever known. Naturally, she is fast asleep.

Things that I learned from my experience.

• When promising a two-year-old that she will be receiving a Puss In Boots toy, try to get across to her that a Puss In Boots toy also encapsulates all of the characters who are within the Puss In Boots universe, which apparently includes an egg man.

• You can purchase toys from McDonald’s without having to buy a Happy Meal. Also, they have four of them.

• There is, currently, no perfect way to save a McDonald’s ice cream cone for later, as they are very top heavy and will not remain stationary in a freezer unless you happen to have an inordinate amount of free space in your freezer.

• A human being can, in fact, eat two ice cream cones one right after the other.

• You will get very sick to your stomach after eating two ice cream cones.

If anyone wants to buy a slightly used, slightly chewed on Humpty Dumpty toy, I’m willing to now accept generous monetary offers.

Bismarck resident Erik Hagen is the author of the SodBlog and, no, he’s not sure if there was much of a point to this anecdote. He just thought it was funny was all. Send your notes of appreciation for him having shared it with you to or visit his website at sodblog.com.

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Comments

  1. This was indeed funny. But now I’m dying to hear about how stupid Ashton Kutcher is. I can’t stand that idiot, and I enjoy it when he accidentally reveals how big of a moron he is.

    • I will make that my next post. Because if there’s one thing that’s easy comedic fodder, it’s pointing out the toolhood of Ashton Kutcher.

  2. Ha! Ha! Ha! I love it. I just repeated this same exercise with my granddaughter.. found your post while searching for the Puss to replace the two egg face characters. By the way there are 6 Puss in Boots characters at McDonalds and 2 of the 6 are Humpty Dumpty’s, one is the baby Humpty and the other the grown Humpty so the good news is you ended up with the Puss and I ended up with two Humptys! I myself would rather have two ice cream cones even with the tummy ache!

  3. My child wants the humpty dumpty as got upset when he got the puss in boots! Kids huh

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