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| - If you've ever wanted to struggle through a Quarter Pounder while choking on the inescapable scent of hobo pee, boy, do I have the place for you!
Look, I'm not saying I go to McDonald's expecting to have a good experience. I don't go to McDonald's because it's good, period; I go because it's *consistent*. It's *CONSISTENTLY* bad. Beyond the twice-a-year Big Mac cravings we all shamefully experience, I only wind up at a McDonald's because I have no other choice, and I resign myself to it because I feel I generally understand the depths to which I'm going to sink. I eat at McDonalds in airports, and cities in which I am lost and starving, where being indoors late at night is recommended for safety. Think Detroit. Don't get me wrong, I'd give the average McDonald's an average 3 stars, maybe 4 stars if it was really nicely appointed. You don't judge McDonald's locations on anything but their own exclusive scale, and I'm cool with that.
But sadly that's not the case here. As you may've noticed, my review is one star, which is frankly one star too many for this particular McDonald's location. I wound up here because after I got my order across the street at Burger's Priest, I couldn't find a seat because the place was crowded with entitled hipsters taking up chairs despite not having their food yet. Struck with a moment of inspiration and convinced I was a genius, I decided to grab a seat at this McDonald's mere steps away, justifying my existence there with the purchase of a Coke and some fries. It was the perfect plan; I'd have the free refills so callously disregarded at the Priest, and I'd eat my burger with plenty of elbow room to spare.
That was the plan.
Unfortunately on this particular occasion, the upstairs floor of the McDonald's was closed "due to flooding." I wasn't sure what kind of flood would close the second floor of an establishment without closing the ground floor, but whatever. I got my Coke, my fries, and grabbed a seat by the window. Tearing into my Priest burger it hit me; a wave of odour so disgusting it was barely fended off by the shield of aroma from my Bacon Cheeseburger with Smoke. As long as I kept the burger within six inches of my face, and my mouth full of house-ground beef and melted cheese, I was fine momentarily. Thus, I survived for the brief term of my meal. But moments after the burger was over and done with, the surroundings overtook me and I fought to control the urge to hurl my body through the plate glass and straight onto Spadina in an effort to escape. It was awful. It was the worst thing. I'm convinced the "flooding" upstairs was some concerted effort by wild local animals to mark their territory, by urinating *everywhere*.
If you've seen a few movies in theaters lately you might have watched a particular commercial running before the trailers. In it, a man and a woman meet for the first time, and in a nod to Linklater's "Before Sunrise" they wander the streets of Toronto, engaging in a conversation neither wishes to end. Confronted by closing storefronts and the impending 2 AM last call, they take refuge in a McDonald's, ending in a tableau where the two of them share a view of the sunrise from the second floor of a 24-hour McDonald's. The McDonald's in that commercial is THIS McDonald's, the couple sharing their late night dialogue while enjoying the view of the city from the closed-to-me-due-to-dubious-flooding second floor. And I feel that as ghetto-adorable as that commercial is, it should end with a notice of caveat.
This McDonald's is not a place where romances go to begin, nor to thrive. This McDonald's is where romances go to destroy themselves, one urine-scented moment of heartbreak at a time. No love has ever grown here. Nothing, in fact, has ever grown here. Plants wilt. Children become stunted.
Don't believe the commercial. This place is hell with french fries, and it is where love goes to die.
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