McDonald's Settles Case Over Nasty Food

cDonald’s Corp. has agreed to donate $10 million to consumer groups to settle lawsuits filed against the chain for mislabeling its food as fresh and tasty.

McDonald’s also posted an apology on its Web site, acknowledging that mistakes were made in communicating to customers about the edibility of its food. The worldwide chain has been selling burgers and sandwiches not suitable for adults since the early 1950’s.

“We sincerely apologize for any hardship or lousy meals that these miscommunications have caused among our billions of customers,� the company said in an apology posted June 1 on the Web site.

Seattle attorney Harish Bharti said Tuesday that a judge gave his tentative approval of the deal last month while bitterly chewing on a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. “This is McNasty,� the judge added.

McDonald’s spokeswoman Anna Rozenich said the money the company will be paying out will go to watchdog organizations that fight for truth in advertising and other issues linked to concerns raised by the consumers, including the poaching of endangered species and psychological trauma caused by life-sized ceramic clowns.

McDonald’s was first sued in Seattle last year by three customers who expected to be able to eat the Extra Value Meals they purchased at a Seattle-area McDonald’s restaurant, not realizing they were purchasing pet toys. The trend caught on, and lawsuits were subsequently filed in Illinois, California, New Jersey and Texas.

The lawsuits were filed on behalf of any customer who ate at a McDonald’s restaurant after 1971. That was the year the company first started showing adults eating McDonalds sandwiches in its ads and commercials, a feat considered impossible by many.

“Our slogan has long been, ‘Delivering the taste you’ve come to expect from McDonald’s’,� said Rozenich. “We still believe this to be a true statement. What that taste is has never been specified in a legal context.�

As part of the lawsuit, the consumer group Pants on Fire pushed to have McDonald’s slogan changed to the more accurate “Our fries are pretty good, but I’d stay away from anything claiming to contain meat,� which was turned down by the judge.

Pants on Fire first came into the public spotlight in 1996, when they sued to have Bank of America’s national slogan changed to “Fuck you and your piddling little checking account.�

McDonald’s customers nationwide reacted with joy at the news of the settlement. “It’s about fuckin’ time,� said Harvey McNeil of Des Plains, Iowa. “Look at that picture,� McNeil said, gesturing toward the menu, which pictured a succulent, juicy Big Mac sitting on a slab of marble next to a bushel of fresh tomatoes and lettuce. “Now look at this,� McNeil continued, opening his cardboard Big Mac container to reveal the pathetic, lopsided mess within. “It looks like somebody shit this out of a tube of Big Macs,� McNeil announced. “I’d take this back but they guy up there doesn’t speak any English.�

“The fast food industry is unique in that it has little accountability,� said attorney Bharti. “If you bought a toaster and found it to be malformed and unappealing inside the box, you’d take it back and demand a refund. The manufacturer could never stay in business. But fast food restaurants thrive on rushed customers and a reliably inept staff to prevent any kind of feedback loop that would hurt business. It’s an enviable racket.�

“McDonald’s listens to its customers and has vowed to make a change for the better,� claimed Rozenich with something close to a straight face. “This $10 million settlement is something McDonald’s takes very seriously, it will take us at least seven minutes to make that money back.�

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"Every Christmas was the same thing at my house. Us kids hung up our socks by the chimney, except for Goose, who was not allowed to post socks anymore due to that court order from the neighborhood block association.

Dad would dress up as Santa and ask all the kids what we wanted for Christmas. Goose would want something different every year, and usually very unreasonable requests at that. One year he asked for a pie as big as the living room and another he wanted a donkey that could speak Spanish. I think Goose was convinced it was more like a contest, like 'Stump Santa!' or something, and consequently he would only get a football every year and they began to pile up in his room.

It began to grate on Dad, who kept trying to get a gift that would pacify Goose every year but Goose would always beat him. The year I got my Radio Flyer wagon and Stephanie got her Holly Hobbie doll, Goose asked for a trunk full of gunpowder. Dad came darn close that time, but on Christmas day he had to forfeit when Goose discovered it was full of dyed flour cut with real gunpowder. Made for quite an explosion anyway, and mom tried to fill the thing with meaning by saying it was like a guiding star for the baby Jesus or something, but we just thought it looked cool.

Goose won every year until that last one, when he got particularly uncreative and asked for a giant robot suit he could climb inside. Dad had to quit work and spend all day and night on it, and technically only the head part could move, but it qualified under the rules Mom had established. Dad danced a jig that night, and all Goose could do was shake his robot suit head in disappointment."

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There was a midget named Fidget and a carcass named Marcus and when it rained the two would sluice through the juice that ran down from the hills and take all the pills they found on windowsills. They would tell each other stories of Reginald Voorhees and the liquor he'd sick up when the moon's in full bloom. And in a rented room they'd zoom zoom zoom around the bed on bicycles and tricycles and roller skates that were Michael's. But since they were two and their feet were few they had to switch off and swap off and top off and trip off to keep it all in motion like a Laotian promotion. Sometimes they would crash and from his bubble bath a doctor named Proctor would shout all about it. He'd bang on the wall and make the Velcro balls fall and threaten to wet them with disappearing solution that would make them go away like a bay on the day the ocean turned to lotion.

But he never did.

On the twelfth day of May, which was May eleventh because of a quirk in the work of the calendar constructor and the fickle heart of a tart the day after he'd… uhm, plucked her. But on the twelfth day an elf may or may not have got sick with elf rot and feeling all hot and brimming with snot stumbled and bumbled and flopped in their room, spelling the doom of their womb of zoom zoom. So, forgetting to groom in the gloom like a tomb, Fidget and Marcus packed up their belongings with no wish of prolonging this awkward encounter, Fidget's Geiger counter going off like sentient meat at the meat counter, because it was broken, just a token from Hoboken. But in their rush and bluster and fluster, they packed up the elf and an old feather duster from up on the shelf that had been sitting there for twelve years all by itself.

And they were off like a shot, but a shot shot quite slowly, all tumbling and rolling like the gun was too oily, like watched water boiling or temp workers toiling or a sloth bent on soiling your favorite bandana. And man, Marcus ate a banana like Princess Diana driving to Montana—it took forever, so you know he didn't do anything quickly. So sickly as the elf may have been, and prickly as Fidget was when wearing all tin (and forget that side-note, it's too long a story and hoary and the end's much to gory and it cribs half of Glory, so just accept he's dressed in tin), they still got going like throwing a Boeing: Way slow.

But once they got moving the UV rays worked in their favor and they savored the flavor of a kiwi Life Saver they passed all around the car and the trunk, but the taste was all sunk after the elf got his chunk. So they pulled right straight over and kicked the elf to the curb, thinking a blurb in the paper better than this Elvin bedwetter, but he bounced! Not just once, and not twice, he bounced like rubber dice or like mice on dry ice, up the street, up the block and off of the clock and the dock and a rock and a Varsity jock as he tried to talk to a girl named Burl and the world began to unfurl as the elf binged and bopped off the top of a cop and a chop shop and a mop and a sign that said STOP but the elf did not stop. He dinged off the wing of a bird and a spring and a turd and a smear of milk curd that had spelled the word nerd.

The elf continued to zip and volley off the side of a trolley and the tip of a collie and your sister Molly. He bounced and he smashed off six tons of trash and an ounce of pounce decanted from a cat. And a hat and a rat were smashed just like that as the elf let out a yelph that he couldn't help himself. And yonder and way by the end of the day the whole damned world was broken and curled and beat-up and crimped and neutered and wimped and a high-flying blimp was the only thing skipped.

And that's where I sit as I write about it on the scraps of a strap that used to wrap maps. But our gas it has passed and our blimp is wrinkled and limp so won't you give us a hand or a small scrap of land or a righteous ska band? On second though, skip the ska band, we should probably just land.

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