Anyways.

Josh have I mentioned about McDonald’s Sweet Tea yet. I like it. It was basically my drink this summer.

As you probably know it’s the only thing on their menu I can eat, between the vegetarianism and the lactose intolerance and the soul-crushing abhorrence of all things fun and entertaining. I get the kids the occasional Happy Meal¹, and you know, it’s been a hot summer, Josh. One might even say it’s been cruel. Don’t I deserve something for myself? Yes. I deserve something.

The McD’s Sweet Tea has spent the last few months on the McDonald’s dollar menu, which means it’s almost dumber not to get it. Particularly if, like me, you find single dollar bills to be the grossest thing since coined money. Think about singles, Josh. Who touches them? The homeless, and people who wear v-neck t-shirts and frequent the neighborhood bar because they don’t own a TV. That money is unclean and letting it malinger in my wallet will only cause me harm in the long run. Best to spend it quickly and wring what little enjoyment out of it I can.

Originally my drink this summer was going to be the Vanilla Diet Coke from Steak & Shake. They use real vanilla, and the large is actually quite large. It is a satisfying beverage for a hot day, when you are driving around, avoiding life. But even here in the midwest we do not yet have a Steak & Shake on every block, whereas one is never more than a casual javelin toss from a McDonald’s. Hence the sweet tea, and its reign as my drink of the summer. And by the way, on behalf of K4T, congratulations to Norway’s Andreas Thorkildsen on his performance at the Beijing Olympics this summer. Norge bør være svært stolte!

I’ll just say this: I don’t know what science lab they make it in, what horrifying resources were squandered in its creation, but at least it takes like actual tea. Not like the stuff at McAllisters. Do you have McAllister’s where you live? They are a chain restaurant that positions itself as THE place to go for southern-style sweet tea. They laud their tea as “famous”, which it is not, by any discernable measure save their own say-so. All I know is McDonald’s’s tastes better. Perhaps they are using more insidious chemicals to mimic real tea flavor. Or maybe it’s just that they’re throwing more marketing resources at the problem. Or, perhaps I’ve just given up. Either way, I like it, and for now, that will be enough to carry me one more time around this unbearable sun.

So there. There is my positive review of a beverage which was clearly added to the menu of a globally-maligned chain restaurant—inextricably linked to the downfall of society—in order to incentivize additional upsell opportunities. I offer it freely to an undeserving internet, to be drowned out amongst the top ten lists and celebrity upskirts; the paid blogvertisements and Apple punditry, the mp3s from bands who formed last week and will have already broken up this time next week when the tide has turned against them; the anonymous, unyielding firehose of homophobic, sexist, racist and completely off-topic comments; and the endlessly navel-gazing and villifying arguments between people who’ve never met on the minutae of topics in which they have no personal stake. I give this to you. You! I give this to you.

1. Yes, actually, I do know that buying my children Happy Meals makes me the worst parent since Grandpappy Hitler spared the rod, but unlike most bloggers, my writing on the internet is not borne of loneliness and self-hatred and a desperate need to have my decisions justified by people as sad and hopeless as I am. Thanks, though! [↩]