Special Sauce

In 1967 McDonald’s opened their first restaurant outside the United States in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. I was eleven years old and painfully aware of all I’d been missing from the years of McDonald’s commercials I’d seen on American TV.

It wasn’t long before I made the pilgrimage to Richmond for my first McDonald’s hamburger.

Years later, when my parents finally bought a car, there was nothing the family enjoyed more than driving to a McDonald’s, picking up our order, and finding a spot in the parking lot where we would all sit in the car eating burgers, fries, apple pies, and drinking cokes from a straw.

I loved the food at McDonald’s, especially their Big Mac. It became a part of my regular routine to eat lunch or breakfast at a McDonald’s at least once or twice a week. I continued this routine even after moving to New York City in the early 80's. No matter where I lived or worked in the city there was always a McDonald’s within easy walking distance.

In the late 90’s my office was located on East 46th Street between First and Second Avenue, and “my” McDonald’s was located on the corner of East 39th Street and Second Avenue. I liked this location because it had large dining areas on the main floor and in the basement, so I was always able to have my own table and enjoy a relaxing lunch reading the newspaper.

One day, I picked up my usual Big Mac, large fries and small coke and, seeing the upstairs seating area was full, headed downstairs to have lunch in the basement. The basement was also quite full but I managed to find an empty table.

Just as I sat down and started to settle-in I was struck by a horrible smell.

I quickly scanned the people sitting around me to see if any of them were the source, (this was New York City, after all).

The stench became nauseating and I realized it was the reek of raw sewage when I saw plumbers through the open door of the men’s room at the other end of the basement struggling to fix a major “problem”.

It was sickening and I had to get out. I grabbed everything, and on my way upstairs looked back and was stunned to see that no one else in the basement dining area seemed to notice the smell. They all blissfully continued eating their hamburgers and fries and drinking their sodas… in that sewer.

I probably should have complained and demanded my money back but, instead, I threw everything in the garbage and went back to the office.

Since that day, I stopped eating at McDonald’s and other fast-food “restaurants”.

The smell of “Special Sauces” mixed with grilling hamburgers and deep-frying french fries, which used to whet my appetite, was now and forever associated with the stench of raw sewage.

It’s a shame to lose something you once enjoyed, but I know I’m much healthier now because of that change in diet made many years ago.