An open letter to the Golden Arches

Dear McDonalds

Firstly, to butter you up my kids are huge fans of the chicken nugget.  Kudos on making yours more succulent and tasty than those of your arch nemesis.  That is our expert opinion, as we have extensively sampled the nugget quality of all other fast food outlets.

As an adult, massive thanks for the salty fries.  While not so great for my kids (ignoring the whole nutritional value of the beloved nugget), they are of excellent salt to potato ratio for a Seagull parent such as myself, who likes to dive in and nab chips whilst my kids are distracted (most often trying to steal each others' nuggets).

My most passionately grateful thanks and adoration is saved for your playground.  May you have a special spot in heaven, nirvana, wherever you choose to rest your corporate franchised globally dominating bones when your time comes.

My kids are more amused by your brightly coloured plastic play equipment, than anything else.  Even my make up, the television, and mobile phones.  And that's saying something.

I adore the fact that your staff are too busy to come and vet the playground for intruders - in the form of me bringing my own homemade snacks for the kids.  I'm stingy, you see, and like to save my pennies for endless flat whites and mixed Coke and Fanta slushies for yours truly.

Your playground is my own personal Nirvana.

I can drown out the sounds of any and all children.

I can read your complimentary newspaper, deftly dodging the grease stains from whoever had it before me.  Thankfully, never a rogue piece of McMuffin staining the celebrity gossip section.

I can bring my wanky little Netbook and pore over Twitter, Facebook, Ebay and blogs.  Just like I do at home.  Only with real proper professional coffee.  And the peace of mind that I can actually see my kids from any angle.  Well I could, if I bothered to look up.

Some McHalo's for you to choose from.
I prefer the sparkly silver number, but the gold is more your colouring

After talking you up, I feel I've boosted your ego, puffed your chest, inflated your sense of self worth enough to ask :

#1 Hubby is going to be absent from Parental Parody Palace ALL of next week.  I've already phoned Daycare and they refuse to kick someone else out (two someone else's, actually) in order to accommodate the twin tornado's all week.  The School Principal won't even take my call to discuss a snap implementation of 8am - 8pm schooling from next week (possibly because she's still embarrassed about asking me only a few months ago, when I was 'due'.  Almost 2 years after I gave birth to the terrible twosome).

So, you can imagine my dread and horror at the prospect of solo dodgy parenting for an entire week.  There's not enough vodka in the world to prepare me.  Sure, I've done it before - but, a lot like giving birth - my survival mechanism kicks in and I forget the gruesome details soon after the event.  I am shitting myself.  Not literally, only proverbially, but the literal could well follow soon, if my flip-flopping nervous stomach doesn't settle down.

Anywho.  Any chance you can hook me up with 4x rollaway beds  in the Playground, from Sunday to Friday?  Preferably in the cubby house, just so I can put up some napkins as curtains and have a bit of privacy for my arvo nap.  I can make do with sleeping bags if you don't have any beds available.  Oh, and I like a soft pillow, thanks.

I'll take my morning latte extra hot, double shot, around 7:30am.  Thanks.

Also, while I'm at it, do you think you could arrange a shuttle service?  Just to get Miss5 to and from school.  She won't need or want to go anywhere else once she learns we're moving in to the Macca's playground for a week.

Thanking you sincerely from the bottom of my vodka soaked Mummy Tummy,

Parental Parody