McRIB ROBBERY
by Daniel Prosek
Some call it fate. Some call it synchronicity. The way the Universe conspires to bring people and events together. I just call it being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was a Thursday. I was driving home from my friend Chris’ house in Redondo Beach late one night when the craving hit me. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a craving. Maybe it was more of a Pavlovian response to the giant McRib sandwich staring at me from the billboard on Sepulveda Blvd while I waited for the light to change. That giant slab of formed ribs dripping with tangy barbeque sauce, top off with onions and pickles on a toasted Kaiser roll had actually started my mouth to water. I started to remember the first time the McRib first appeared on the menu at McDonalds. This was new. This was different. I think I’ll try one. Once I tried one I was addicted to them. I would walk down the street to the McDonalds by my work every day at lunch. For a month, I was in pork tenderloin heaven. Then as unexpectedly as they appeared they were gone. As the light turned green the urgency of the situation was immediately brought home when I saw the writing below the object of my gastronomical affection. Not only did it say “The McRib is back” but it said that “The McRib is back for a LIMITED TIME”.
As I sped down the street my mind frantically tried to recall the location of the nearest McDonalds. At that time I lived in the South Bay and there were several McDonalds I could go to. The one on Sepulveda near Hawthorne was the nearest on my route. Soon in the distance I spied the Golden Arches. I pulled into the drive through. There were six other cars in line. It seems that I wasn’t the only one concerned that the McRib might be disappearing soon.
I sat in the line for a few minutes but it wasn’t moving. So, being impatient I decide to leave. There were other McDonald’s. Including that one in Harbor City. The one just down the street from the public housing. The one no one ever goes too. Especially at night. So, I pulled out of the drive through and headed there. I was determined to get my McRib.
Good luck. When I pulled in there was only one other car in the drive through line. He was currently ordering at the speaker. He pulled up and now it was my turn to order. For some reason at that time I remembered reading an article about how unhealthy McRibs were. According to some dietitian each McRib sandwich contained 450 calories, 26 grams of fat and 75 milligrams of cholesterol. I ordered two of them.
I pulled up. The first car was now at the drive up window. I took a five dollar bill out of my wallet to pay for my McRibs and placed it on the passenger seat beside me. In my rearview mirror I could see another car pulling up to the speaker to order. Suddenly, another car pulled up beside me and stopped. This was strange since it boxed me in. Some one got out of the car and walked behind my car. I didn’t think much about it until I turned my head to find a gun pointed at me through my opened window.
I had never seen a real gun before. At least not that close. It looked fake. I didn’t know how to respond when a gun is pointed at one’s head for the first time. So I laughed. It was the involuntary chuckle of seeing the last thing in the world I expected to see. Needless to say this did not endear me to the person who was holding the gun and perpetrating the robbery. Talk about bad first impressions.
I’d like to say that I was robbed by some menacing gang member but what I found my self face to face with was a teenage African-American girl. Her first words to me were “Give me your money.” Still being distracted by the gun the only response I could then muster was “Huh”. Annoyed that I didn’t seem to understand the present situation she thrust the gun even closer and repeated “I said give me your money”. Not knowing what the protocol was for a robbery I looked around my car and spotted the five dollar bill I had placed on the seat to pay for my McRibs and handed it to her. She looked at the five dollar bill and then looked at me as if I had mistaken her for someone panhandling for money and said “What’s wrong with you? Do you want to get shot?” For some reason, the old Jack Benny routine “Your money or your life?” came flooding into my memory. Needless to say this elicited another involuntary laugh.
Anyway, some part of my rational mind must of realized that this wasn’t helping the situation. I quickly spied my wallet which was also sitting on the passenger seat. So I grabbed my wallet and gave it to her. Staring at it for a few seconds this seemed to satisfy her, the gun was withdrawn and she left. The car that was boxing me in drives away. The car in front of me pulls away from the drive-up window but I sat there for a few seconds wondering “What just happen?”
I figured I needed to report this so I pulled up to the drive thru window. The teenage girl there says “That will be $4.86.” I reply “I’ve just been robbed.” Stunned by this non-procedural information she stands there not knowing what to do next. “I’ve been robbed.” I repeated. She just stood there as if I had special ordered a Big Mac without the bun. Again I said “I just been robbed. Please call the police.” After a second she replies “I better get the manager.” So, I sit there for what seems to be minutes even though it was probably a few seconds. Suddenly, a middle aged man in a tie pokes his head through the drive thru window. “I’m the manager. Can I help you?” “Yes, I’ve just been robbed waiting in the Drive- Thru window. Can you call the police?” “Sorry, I can’t do that.” “What?” “We’re not allowed to call the police. Its part of our procedures but you can use our phone if you like.”
So I got out of my car and the manager took me to the office. It was kind of strange because you don’t think of a McDonald’s as having an office. A pile of papers stacked up next to a French fryer but not an office where there is a desk. This was the nerve center of the entire operation. Well, I dialed 911. What does one say. I’ve never dialed 911 before. They answered “911, what’s the emergency?” I imagined that they probably spent millions of dollars and had focus groups about what to say. “Should we just say ‘hi’ or ‘how’s it going’? That one was probably rejected for being too general. Of course, I relied “Hi, 911. (I called them ‘911’ because I wanted to be business like. I wanted them to know that I wasn’t no whacko who calls 911 for directions to a restaurant or someone who accidentally calls 911 when they meant to call 411 for information.) Anyway, “Hello, 911, I’ve been robbed.” Thus started a series of questions that made it seem that I was the one that had committed the crime. “Are you sure, sir? What did they look like? Did they intend to rob you?” I kind of wished that I had called On-Star instead. At least On-Star on the radio is friendly. After I hang up, I sit down at one of the tables going over the incident in my head waiting for the police. All of a sudden the girl from the drive thru comes up to me with a McDonald’s bag and plops it down in front of me and says “Here’s your McRibs. I stare at her for a second and reply “I don’t have any money.” She’s at a lost for words and leaves. In a minute she comes back and proudly announces “The manager says its okay” and leaves. I stared at the bag. It was one of first times in my life in which I wasn’t hungry.
Anyway, 40 minutes later the LAPD show up. They take my information. They look at my car. Then they tell me I’m the third person robbed in a fast food drive-thru that night by the same perpetrators. They hit someone at a Taco Bell at 8:30. Another person at a Jack-in-the Box at 9:15. Me at 10:15. A really busy night.
It’s almost midnight when I get home and the first thing I have to do is to try and figure out what exactly was in my wallet. At the time I was a collector of credit cards. I would get a pre-approved application in the mail and I would accept it. It was like a kind of financial validation for me. So, I carried around several credit cards even though I never used any of them. I figured I could open my wallet and people could say or think “Wow. You have a lot of credit cards. You must have a lot of money”. Or “Wow. You have a lot of credit cards you have must a lot of financial validation”.
So, I started calling up and canceling everything. Every time repeating my story and getting sympathy from complete strangers. So, I started calling up my friends for sympathy. I even started calling people I hadn’t seen in a while. I thought about calling my parents in Ohio but they were fast asleep because of the three hour time difference. The next day I called into work. I needed time to get every thing back in order. This time I wasn’t calling in sick I was calling in “robbed”.
The next day I need to get another driver’s license. I didn’t have any picture forms of ID. So, I went down to the DMV with my birth certificate. It’s funny how a birth certificate is considered to be a legal form of ID. Every one’s driver license picture doesn’t look like them but at least there’s a height and weight and age that’s approximate. On my birth certificate I’m five pounds 9 ounces and 22 inches long and age zero. “Yeah, that’s me”.
Looking back over the incident it was very surreal. Almost like being in a movie. In the coming days I would rerun the whole thing over and over again in my head. The mind is a remarkable thing. It seems like it doesn’t want to loose. Things need to be made right. I had just been violated. So, when I rerun it again in my head this time I win. This time I pull out my 57 magnum like Dirty Harry and blow her away. “Do you feel lucky, punk. Well, you ya?” This time I take my car door and slam her up against the brick wall of McDonald’s. This time I cleverly get out of it by using Jedi mind tricks like Obi Wan used on the Imperial Storm Trooper’s in Star Wars. “There’s nothing to see here. There’s nothing of value here. I’d hungry for a McRib sandwich. Let’s move on.”
The other day I was driving down Sepulveda. I looked up at that billboard. I see that the McRib is back again. This time I got a different kind of Pavlovian response. All I could see was a gun pointed at my head. I think I’ll skip the McRib.