for breakfast, i crave bagel and meat and cheese and egg. conveniently, mcdonald's offers this combination of food products in a startling variety. i waiting for my order and the girl behind me orders a "bagel with ham, egg and cheese". the man behind the counter looks slightly confused and asks, in rather broken english, for her to clarify. is she a foreigner? is she a mcdonald's neophyte? this woman has broken the unspoken fast food rule. you order it as it is written. you don't improvise with the menu. "bagel" go first at einstein's or noah's, as in "bagel toasted with cream cheese", but bagel go last at mcdonald's. she asked again for a "bagel with ham, egg and cheese". mcdonald's crew guy still did not have a clue. he asks, hesistantly, "bagel?". to which she responds, "yes, with ham, egg and cheese." i began to wonder if i was on candid camera or something. the voice in my head was screaming "oh, for the love of jesus. ham, egg and cheese bagel!" my food arrived just as he ventured "bagel?" once more. i've no idea if she ever got her food. serves her right if she didn't.

at lunch, the man in front of me ordered a coffee and the woman behind me ordered a cappucino, both of which i considered odd, given that this mcdonald's is across the street from a starbucks. but the cappucino request got me to thinking about the failed mccafe, a concept imported after success abroad. the first mccafe opened next to an existing mcdonald's on wabash here in the loop last june. chris and i popped in once to check it out. though the coffee and snacks were passable, the ambiance was...how do you say...yucky. leather couches straight out of the pottery barn, flowery wallpapers, reproductions of old foreign ads, all intended to achieve that warm, european CAFE feeling. except that the whole thing was harshly lit with flourescents. kinda killed the mood. both the mccafe and the mcdonalds it was attached to closed last winter. neither were mourned.

but worth mourning is the absense of mr. pibb from the mcdonalds fountain. i noticed at lunch that it had been replaced by some minute maid grape soda. it is my understanding that the pibb is being reformulated and reintroduced. this is just wrong. it is cold comfort that chipotle still serves this magical elixir. probably just a matter of time before the original slips into history's dustbin. sigh.

new digs. yay me.