Caramel Wars

Hello Everyone!

I hope you had a nice weekend.

Cheers,
Busy-Dad-E

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Oh wait!  I guess I should actually write a post. :)  Okay, okay...

There is a certain fast-food restaurant, for which my boys have a little bit of a penchant.

To keep things "anonymous", we'll just call it - as my high school French teacher did - Chez MacDo.

So the folks at Chez MacDo have these Petit Nuggets du Chicken that for some unknown reason the boys really like, and for an even bigger unknown reason think is the only chicken fit for their consumption.

But as I've mentioned before, the one catch is that they need their special "Dunky Dunk", aka Sauce du Caramel.

The funny thing is that with caramel sauce they down the chicken carnivorously, but without the caramel they act like they've been served limburger.  Go figure.  This coming from their Dad-E, who when he was a boy would only eat the mini-Lender's bagels, refusing to eat the full-size ones, as if they were made a fundamentally different matter.  So I guess I kinda can figure.

The caramel issue used to be a "non-issue".  Chez MacDo had nice little packets of Dunky Dunk that came with the apple slices.

And then, for some reason, when Chez MacDo starting including smaller portions of both fries and apples in all Kid's Meals, they got rid of the caramel completely.

OH THE HORROR!!!  AAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I digress.

So, what are a Mom-E and Dad-E of 3 picky eaters to do?

After considering several options, we pretty much resorted to the BEG FOR CARAMEL one.

Most of the time, this works out pretty well:

"What kind of sauce would you like?"

"Could we just get 2 squirts of caramel from the sundae machine, please?"

Often, the response is "Sure, no problem."

Sometimes it's a "Yeah, sure.  I don't know why they got rid of those caramel packets."

(You're telling me!)

Other times, however, I get that "I'm a robot from another planet.  This does not compute." look.

C'mon please.  I KNOW you have caramel.  I will gladly pay for it.  Please sir, may I have some more?

"Uh, I dunno, let me ask the manager about that."  (I understand, those two pumps on the caramel machine are quite the taxing bicep workout.)

Manager: "Yes, sir.  I'm sorry.  We can't do that."

"Why?  Your store actually got it for me 2 weeks ago."

"Well, we're not allowed to just dispense the caramel into an open container.  Health code...yackety smackety...blah blah blah."

"It seems to dispense fine when you put it on top of a sundae?"

"We can't do that."

"Okay, then I'd like to order a caramel sundae, minus the ice cream, please."

"No, that's not necessary.  We'll get it for you (THIS TIME!)"

"Thank you.  I'm not asking for an entire cup full of caramel.  Literally just 2 squirts - just enough to fill up a ketchup container."

I even had a manager explain to me that if every car in the drive thru requested caramel, what a giant mess that would be.

(Probably not any more mess than the backup you created by taking 5 minutes to debate with me about 2 squirts of caramel.)

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I know, I know.  "Why don't you just BYOC (Bring Your Own Caramel), Busy-Dad-E?"  Besides the logistics of hauling some caramel around everywhere, of course, with our boys, only the caramel from Chez MacDo will do.

Oh mon dieu, sacre bleu!

Parents 0, Boys 1