#16: My dad and his war with McDonald's

The story of my dad and his quest to procure McDonald's hotcake batter in bulk

The other night at dinner my wife looked at our girls and said “did you know today would have been Grandpa Bruce’s birthday?” Our 3 year old, with a mouthful of “lo mein” that our 5 year old made for us for dinner, promptly said “Grandpa Bruce is dead”. I chuckled and the 3 year old looked at my wife and repeated, as if to confirm “Grandpa Bruce is dead [right?]”. My dad died two years ago on December 26th and thinking back on the stunts he pulled with us kids is one of my fondest ways to remember him. Like his long running feud with McDonald’s over his failed attempts at buying hotcake batter in bulk.

Divorced Dads Got it Easy

I’ve talked a few times in this newsletter (and my old one) about how my parents splitting up when I was 8 profoundly affected me. Now that I have children, and the fact that I’m the product of divorced parents, I’ve devised a “parenting level of difficulty” that boils down to something like this (from most difficult to least difficult):

1. Single moms

2. Married moms

3. Married dads

4. Divorced dads

Let’s face facts here fellas: moms have it harder no matter what. But single moms definitely have it the hardest. They bear the burden of being both the organizer of things, the rule instiller, the clothes buyer, the manners enforcer, the caretaker, etc, etc. My mom was all of this as well as our little league baseball coach.

Married moms and dads come in number 2 and 3 in terms of level of difficulty. In some families, there’s a wide berth between married moms and dads. In our family, I think we’re pretty close (though mom still has it tougher than me because dudes still suck in a lot of ways).

If single moms are the Serena Williams of the parent kingdom, then single dads are the tennis pro down the street who really enjoys having a few beers after practice and still thinks tennis peaked with John McEnroe. No parent has it easier (in most cases!) than single dads. They have but one job: to be the fun parent. Actually that’s not their job, it’s just what they’ve chosen to do. My dad certainly falls into this. After my parents’ divorce, he was just a little bit careless, he was a lot of fun, and he was definitely crazy. He taught my youngest brother and me that if you take a piece of PVC pipe, cap one end, and drop bottle rockets into the pipe, it makes a pretty good shoulder fired missile. We also learned that you don’t need swim trunks to go swimming. All you need is a pair of boxer shorts (something he fortunately only did at this fishing lake we would frequent near his apartment).

Out of all these shenanigans my dad pulled with us growing up, his long running feud with McDonalds stands out in my mind.

The Magic of Good Hotcakes

One universal truth about single dads is they are cheap. My dad had a 1 bed, 1 bath apartment which meant that when my youngest brother and I spent the night at his place, one of us was on the couch and the other in a sleeping bag next to the couch. Now, don’t get me wrong. This was not terrible. Actually, for 10 and 8 year old boys, it felt pretty glamorous (my 3 year old would agree; she’s spent the last 6 weeks sleeping in her sleeping bag in various places around our house). We’d order pizza, watch my dad’s favorite dumb movies (Freebie and the Bean was a particular favorite), and play poker. It was great.

But for some reason, the best part of the weekend was our Sunday morning trip to McDonald’s for hotcakes and sausage.

Beautiful hotcakes. Just beautiful.

As an adult, and someone who makes some real goddamn good pancakes, I can objectively say now that McDonald’s hotcakes are meh. A little rubbery, a little thin, but when combined with the sausage and hash brown, they form a sort of fast food delicacy, a delightful mouth watering bite. We loved it. My dad loved it. We were happy.

Except single dads love to cut corners. And on top of that, my dad was a professional chef. He cooked food for people for a living! And here we were, at McDonald’s eating their delightful hotcakes. After many months of our Sunday ritual, my dad spent about a few weeks attempting to make the hotcakes himself. But little kids are picky. Maybe we loved the styrofoam box the hotcakes came in? Perhaps it was the warmed industrial grade corn syrup. I don’t know. But every attempt at recreating the hotcakes came up flat. We whined and complained. We demanded the return of the McDonald’s hotcakes!

“I’m sorry sir, we can’t sell you that”

One thing I loved about my dad is that he never really talked to us like we were kids. So when he hatched his plan to procure vast amounts of hotcake batter directly from McDonald’s, he told us exactly what he was going to do.

“I’m going to buy the hotcake mix directly from McDonald’s. Then I will make them for us at home”

“Can you do that?” 10 year old TJ inquired. I honestly didn’t know shit from shinola (one of my dad’s favorite expressions) so pops clearly knew something I didn’t.

“Of course you can!” And off to our neighborhood McDonald’s we went.

I genuinely remember standing at the counter watching my dad talk to the 16 or 17 or 18 year old high school kid taking our order.

“So….you want to buy the hotcake batter?”

“Yes, please”

“Ummmm, I can sell you the hotcakes? But I don’t think we sell the batter?” the kid kinda stumbled through his response. As someone who worked retail in high school, few things were as intimidating as telling a someone’s dad “no”.

“I’d like to speak with your manager please”

Over came a manager who repeated what the cashier had just told us: McDonald’s does not sell their hotcake batter in bulk. My dad was furious. My brother and I stood there watching my dad’s attempted hotcake coup fall apart like an overcooked hash brown. We ordered three sets of hotcakes and took them home. My brother and I were pleased. My dad was not. He was already brewing up another angle.

Two Sundays later, we got up as we always did, packed into the front seat of my dad’s Impala (70’s era bench seats FTW), and headed off for a different McDonald’s than our usual spot.

“Where are we going dad?”

“To McDonald’s”

“But this isn’t the way?”

“We’re going to a different one. I’m going to pretend like I’m from a church to see if they’ll sell me the hotcake batter!”

“Can you do that?” this, apparently, was a common question I asked my dad.

“Of course you can!” And off we went to procure some Holy Hotcake batter.

“Who Doesn’t Sell Pancakes to a Church?!?”

I’m not sure I really cared that we were walking into a Foreign McDonald’s, one that wasn’t close to our house or one that I knew. I was just hungry and ready to eat (a prevailing sentiment throughout my life). My dad walked up to the counter and wisely skipped negotiating with the high school kid working the register. He immediately asked for a manager.

“Hi, I’m Bruce with St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church. We’re having a pancake supper in the next few weeks and I was hoping we could buy some of your hotcake batter”

I know this sounds improbable but it literally went down this way. My dad, the agnostic (or atheist or whatever), was fronting like he was from the church my mom took us to in order to get some hotcake batter in bulk.

“I’m sorry sir, we don’t sell the hotcake batter” the manager replied apologetically.

“I don’t think you heard me. I’m with a church” my dad responded with a tinge of incredulity. You could see the confused look on his face. Who says no to a church?

“Yessir, I heard you, we just don’t really have a way to sell the batter in bulk. I don’t think I can help you”.

My dad was fuming. Like beyond mad. We left without ordering hotcakes. My brother and I not really caring or wanting to be a part of this ridiculous scheme, were despondent. WHERE WERE OUR HOTCAKES!

I’m not exactly sure where we went next, but I know we did not go to a McDonald’s after that. Maybe that’s when we started going to IHOP or Waffle House or somewhere else. But even into adulthood, I would bring this story up and my dad would look at me and say “WHO DOESN’T SELL HOTCAKES TO A CHURCH?!?”. I would always respond that dad, you weren’t actually with a church.

And his answer was always “It doesn’t matter! They didn’t know I wasn’t with a church!”. 😊