{"id":10881,"date":"2020-12-16T11:59:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T17:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=10881"},"modified":"2020-12-16T12:00:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T18:00:51","slug":"tales-of-mcdonalds-happy-meals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2020\/12\/16\/tales-of-mcdonalds-happy-meals\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales of McDonald’s Happy Meals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This blog probably won’t have much substance, like, at all, but some memories from my childhood have been on my mind for a while now and I wanted to talk about them. I’m sure everyone my age had at least <\/span>one<\/span><\/i> happy meal as a kid. The red box with yellow handles was like a treasure chest to hungry kids. The boxes used to look a lot less terrifying back then before McDonald\u2019s turned the boxes into mascots; they were actually pretty cute. When you\u2019d open the box and the warmth of the fresh food would hit your face, there would also always be a special gem, though \u2013 the toy.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was a kid, and a kid in Mississippi no less, McDonald’s always asked when you ordered your happy meal in the drive-through if you wanted a “boy’s toy” or a “girl’s toy,” and if you ordered in the restaurant, they’d simply give you the toy that was designated to the gender you appeared as. As a really young child, I had no issues with this. I remember wanting to collect all of the brushable hair My Little Ponies, and they’re probably still stashed away somewhere in my grandmother’s house. However, as I grew older, I always thought the “boys’ toys” were much cooler, and as a kid who was really into “boy\u201d shows, being a girl at McDonald’s kinda sucked. I can remember tons of days of disappointment when I’d see a Pok\u00e9mon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Transformers toy, all franchises I was really into, but get a La La Loopsie or Justice toy because I was a girl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember I would ask to get happy meals in the drive-through specifically so they\u2019d start asking which one I wanted, and I would tell my parents or grandparents that I wanted a \u201cboy\u2019s\u201d toy.\u201d If I was with my parents, they\u2019d comply, but I would always slump down in my car seat out of embarrassment so the workers couldn\u2019t see me. Some of my grandparents would always tell the workers the meal was for a girl no matter what I said, and while I\u2019ll probably never know why they did that, I could bet it was based on a fear of me being \u201cweird\u201d or not fitting gender norms when I was older. Who knows? I just know I hated it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t ordered a happy meal in a long time, but I remember the last time I did they simply asked what franchise I wanted a toy from. I hope that\u2019s how they do it now, and if it is, I\u2019m glad kids will be able to get the toy they want, regardless of gender.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog probably won’t have much substance, like, at all, but some memories from my childhood have been on my mind for a while now and I wanted to talk about them. I’m sure everyone my age had at least one happy meal as a kid. The red box with yellow handles was like a … Continue reading “Tales of McDonald’s Happy Meals”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10881"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10889,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10881\/revisions\/10889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}