McDonalds.

Firstly, the cold spell broke! I wore jeans, a tshirt, and a hoodie to class last week and didn't wear the hoodie back from class. It was a nice change, and much less burdensome for laundry day. It was also rainy, though, so I needed an umbrella, which is kind of like having to wear extra layers: Inconvenient, but mostly necessary, unless you wish to let the ridiculous weather conditions interfere with you.

Secondly, there is no way the story I am about to tell you will do justice to the situation. The adrenaline, the tension, the cold, the feeling of success, none of it can be properly explained in this blog. But it all happened.

So earlier this week David (Daniel's friend and once roomate) invited us to all go to a McDonalds promotion sort of thing. There had been one at another McDonald's a few weeks prior to which his brother had gone. It was that the first 100 people in line when the McDonalds had it's grand opening (it'd been open like two weeks, so i don't know why THIS was so special) got free value meals weekly for a year. It sounded interesting enough, and Daniel, Leah, and I debated all week about whether or not to go. I personally wanted to, but not without them, since David's other friends that were going were people I wouldn't know.

So I wake up Friday morning, and it is cold. And windy. I wished I had a kite while I was walking around, although I suppose it wouldn't have made it past the trees. Campus has lots of trees. But as Daniel, Leah and I were eating our Whataburger dinner (Note: I don't eat fast food that often, although this post may make it seem otherwise... Whataburger, McDonalds weekly) and we realized that it may be cold tonight. At my dorm, with the Weather Channel, we realized it would be like... 29 degrees. That's bad enough, when walking for like 20 minutes. Sitting outside of a McDonalds for hours? We doubted we would live to use our free meals.

In the end, after alot of texting with David and debating, Daniel and I ended up going. Daniel wore two jackets instead of one to prepare for the cold. ONE extra layer. I wore two pairs of leggings, ankle socks, knee socks, shoes, jeans, two long sleeved shirts, a short sleeved shirt, a jacket, a hoodie, a scarf, a hat, and gloves, although I ended up letting Daniel use the gloves. Daniel and I also each packed a blanket. That's like.. idk, 12 extra layers We planned on getting starbucks and arriving at 2, but David called and said the line was long. So we immediately left, decided not to get starbucks, and went straight to McDonalds. Somewhere on that walk to my car, our purpose changed. Originally we were half-heartedly entering into this. As soon as we heard the line was long and we might get beat out, our mindset changed. We were not going to lose. We would not be turned away because we arrived too late. We were on a mission. Luckily, not getting starbucks caused us to be around 80th in line.


Now, first of all, the line had wrapped around the building from the front of the door so far that we were blocking the drive-thru. So our lives were in danger from both cars and cold. Second, the people behind us were annoyed that McDonalds was in no way making a real line, so people could just but ahead with no problem. We were kind of clustered aroudn the building in a line-like fashion. After the woman arguing with the manager, McDonalds gave us each a sticker to wear on our hands. This caused sort of a panic to get stickers, and everyone crowded around the woman. Daniel, David and I, however (we were the three who showed up, of all the people who said they might) recieved our "Apply online at http://www.mcflorida.com/ stickers that apparently meant that we were the first hundred in line. Now the stickers were just so that we couldn't be butted, not so that we could leave. We all went and sat down around the buidling, relatively close to where we were before. Daniel and I played cards, David and I played mancala on his iPhone. We tried to order pizza, but nobody was open to deliver to where we were that late, unfortunately. If only we could've been the awesome people that ordered a pizza in the line outside McDonalds.. but it couldn't be. Our next best bet was to go through the drive-thru. We didn't want to leave the line, but we wanted warm drinks and such. And everyone else had been flitering out of the line and back.

However, as we turned the corner, we heard the employee yelling at the front of the line (which was around the corner) about how people shoudln't be leaving the line, though most people were only doing what we were doing. Other people, like the high schoolers behind us, went home, got a firepit, and started a fire. Right next to the McDonalds. As this was happening, the employee returned and said that the police had been called about disturbances, and anyone else would be considered treesspassing if they caused disturbances. The stupid fire people proceeded to put their fire out and move the firepit away. Just wondering, did they not think there would be a firecode about starting a fire ten feet from a building and 15 feet from where the cars were parked? Has the school system failed that much at common sense? What outcome did they see from that situation?

So. It's around 3:30, and we are getting quite cold. Well, they are, I'm slightly warmer in my "excessive" (were my layers excessive, David? I was warm much longer than you) layers, but even that's not enough to keep the freezing chill away. We're all sitting down, everyone's kind of chilling around the McDonalds all peacefully when this ridiculous employee decides to return and says, "Stickers no longer mean anything. You guys need to work the line out amongst yourselves, but the stickers don't matter. We can't be responsible anymore." There was a sort of pause and a murmur, and people began to stand. The other, more sensible group of high schoolers next to us were like, hey everyone, just sit down, it's fine. So we sat. For maybe 15 minutes. Then the calm was broken, and a slight amount of panic set in. First a few people, then more, began to stand, and the line began to compact. Some people just left their chairs and stuff where it was to move forward as the line compressed. The sensible high shcoolers were the most upset. But we were all too concerned about preserving our spot in the great line crunch to be too upset. In a minute we had reformed our crowd into a line, maybe four people wide and still stretching around the building, with all of us standing in close proximity to each other.

So it's about 4 and we're standing, now, all slightly anxious about our spots in line, since our stickers no longer matter and people are going to just merge into the line in front of us, since we're still more of a line shaped crowd than an actual line. We all became unified with our fellow linemates. The sensible high schoolers (who, though sensible, were crazy. They are the loud, yell out ridiculous things to be "funny" type of people, who I'm not at ease around) were next to us, yelling out ridiculous things to be "funny." Also, more seriously, yelling at anyone thinking of skipping. Somehow, though, people managed to squeeze in front of us, while we kept compacting inches every few minutes. We measured progress by the spilled latte and mocha. We started by noticing we were standing in a spilled latte. Then we weren't. Then we saw a spilled mocha. Then we were standing in that. Then we were past the mocha. Then time kept passing slowly. Our faces were cold, our toes had no feeling, everything was slightly miserable. Tensions were high, with the yelling high schoolers, the threat of skippers, and the frustration about the entire situation. And there were these skateboarders doing tricks that the high schoolers were yelling at. It got heated.

At one point, an employee left for the night, and the skateboarders through some sort of McDonalds breakfast biscuit at her. She threatened to fight them. We all yelled at whoever through it. Seriously? Why would you do that? It was the skateboarders, since they went andpicked it up after she left. The entire line was unhappy at them. It was the oddest experience, feeling so unified and bonded with these people in line, and at the same time feeling so tense that they would be the ones to beat us out to the promotion.

Then it was 5! We all clapped and cheered, actually. Now, in my mind, I figured the doors would open and there would be some mob-like riot. People wouldn't care where they were in line, they would just run for the door and try to push they're way in, much like when the woman handed out stickers. However, I was proven wrong. They opened the door and, counting, let some people in. We sighed. That meant longer to wait. But none of us moved from our spots to mob the door. Over the next twenty minutes, we moved forward little by little. We were fifteen feet, then ten, then five feet from the door. Then there were four people in front of us. Then, we were the next people in front of the door. The employee at the door informed us that she believed they were out of the little free meal things. (We were like 70th in line. What the heck?) However, everyone with the sticker WOULD be honored, since they were told they could. And there were actually still four coupon things left, so we went in and purchased the food necessary to recieve the free value meal coupon. Daniel and I got ours. David had to wait around a little and use his sticker to get his from the manger. Oh, we had to purchase an item, since it went to the first 100 CUSTOMERS. Smooth, McDonalds. Make money off us.

Then, being tired and cold, Daniel and I decided to return to campus. On the way, we noticed the frost on the plants. And the ice on my car. ICE, not frost. It was on the windshield, I discovered shortly after I began driving, and had to put the defroster and wipers on to get it off, which I eventually did, while driving slowly down the road and trying not to crash. I've only dealt with ice on my car once or twice.

Its like a square box with little circles to be punched out, four a month (five for some.) But, four of them are for January, which already ended.

I'm really not sure what point I'm trying to make about all of this. There's no real theme or message, except that people shouldn't cut in line, crowds shouldn't be near mob stages, and McDonalds needs to be more organized about their promotions to prevent murders at the scenes.