Ladies and gentlemen of the Food Envy community, I have but one impassioned request for all of you: if you're going to get into a fight (say, to defend the honour of pineapple pizza), please - please - don't get into a fight in McDonald's. With its pretty colours, glorious food and enduring corporate plea that you're "Lovin' It" every time you step under the Golden Arches, McDonald's is pretty much Disneyland for anyone who can't afford to go to Disneyland.
As such, it's best to show McDonald's a little bit of respect. Like any regretful parent who had one too many beers and swung a couple of fists at a terrified and underpaid 20-year-old trapped in a sweaty, Goofy-shaped coffin, the emotional wounds and public ridicule may never fade away, and plus: it's just not a good look for anyone involved.
McDonald's is right up there on the worst places to get charged with assault.
But although I am enraged at the simple notion of somebody assaulting another person in a McDonald's, I will take a deep breath, analyse the situation as objectively as I can, and conclude that this 13-year-old boy probably didn't deserve to be charged with assault for his actions inside a McDonald's in Hammersmith, west London.
Here's the situation.
You're a teenager. A teenager who can't be named for legal reasons, yes, but a teenager. You're out with your friends at the local shopping centre, when you feel a rumbling deep in your abdomen. You're hungry, and when you're young, hungry and happy, the Golden Arches are pretty much the only place you should be going.
An hour later, however, you're in handcuffs. Under police custody.
Just how exactly did this happen?
Police have been investigating this teen for quite a few months now, and they've seen fit to charge him with assault “by using a straw to fire a chip, hitting her in the face”. From that alleged incident, a fight ensued between the teenagers and four young women, and before long, law enforcement had to get involved.
A sad state of affairs at any McDonald's, I assure you.
All four boys present that day were charged, with one pleading guilty, another handed a caution, while another is reportedly awaiting trial, determined not to let the allegation chip away (sorry) at his reputation.
"It’s ridiculous," said the boy's mother, who saw the entire situation unfold, and maintains that not only was the boy in question aiming at his friend, but it was actually a straw wrapper - not a weaponised projectile of fried potato - that was fired. She doesn't even think a french fry would practically work: "I tried to put a chip in a McDonald’s straw. It doesn’t fit."
Regardless of how this trial ends up in a few months, I think that this incident counts as a cautionary tale: we all have to watch ourselves inside of a McDonald's. I know we might go in there in various levels of inebriation or whatever, but let's all be on our best behaviour next time we're under the Golden Arches.
Do it for the nugs.
