McDonald’s rolled out a new ad campaign to entice adults back under the Golden Arches – adult Happy Meals.

Many of us remember Happy Meals as a burger and fries we picked up for the kids on the way to soccer practice.

The prizes back then were fun. We still have the Batman drinking glasses as well as the Hamburgler and Ronald McDonald Christmas ornaments.

The adult Happy Meal “McNugget Buddies” are figurines that sit on someone’s desk. Not something collectible like the year they gave out Hot Wheels, but the meal choice is something only McDonald’s could offer – a Big Mac.

Normally we’d swear off the 500-plus calorie double-meat burger, but it’s a Happy Meal – surely the calories don’t count.

There’s a few more things I’d love to see make their way from the kid realm to the adult universe.

Cotton Candy. I remember watching the carnival barker swirl pink strands of cotton candy onto a white paper cone, finishing with a flourish, and then handing over a stick of pure sugar.

The cotton candy would immediately melt on our tongues. We’d run off the sugar high at the park on merry-go-rounds with no safety harnesses and metal slides with no side rails.

I’d love to have calorie-free cotton candy in tropical flavors, the cotton candy swirled as high as Dolly Parton’s hair. As a plus, I’d like to be able to eat the whole thing without judgment or embarrassment.

Parks for adults would also be something fun. Imagine a tall wide slide – most of us have put on a few pounds since elementary school.

At the end, instead of landing in a pile of dirt or sand, we’d land in a pile of foam pillows where we could relax as long as we wanted.

I love the kid’s meal at the movie theater. When my boys were young, we’d go to the cinema on 50-cent Tuesdays. They’d get a snack box for a dollar with popcorn, a sugary drink and a bag of M&Ms.

I wish I could go to the movies, still on 50-cent Tuesdays, and get that just-right size of snacks for the movie instead of $17.50 for a small box of popcorn and a diet Coke.

Adults have museums, and they’re filled with treasures from the past, present and the future. We walk quietly through, read the signs, and feel smarter when we leave.

I wish I could go to a museum where we could play with water cannons, pet starfish without pretending we were helping the kids, and talk as loudly as we wanted.

The exhibits would be colorful and loud. Picture a room with all the hits from The Beatles, their music blaring while psychedelic colors flashed on the walls.

There’s also be a room with John Denver, Marvin Gaye, and Carol King tunes playing while we relaxed on overstuffed pillows and snuggled up with soft, worn comforters.

Some of us might enjoy a dress-up museum where we could try on gowns from the 1940s, with chiffon, beads and satin swirling around us just like Ginger Rogers wore in all those movies with Fred Astaire.

Still others might love a museum where they drove loud four-wheelers through mud without a care in the world. The last stop of that museum would be a steam and sauna room where the mud was washed off as well as our cares and worries.

I’m glad McDonalds is trying to take us back to the past. Now if they can just find a way to make that Big Mac 90 calories instead of 563, life would be fantastic.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.