Marshall Brain's Blog

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McNuggets on the move

Today was a spectacular Fall day in Raleigh -- 72 degrees, no wind, bright sunny skies. David, his Grandfather and I decided to ride our bikes down to McDonald's for an ice cream cone this afternoon, and we were sitting outside on the restaurant's patio watching people ride by on the bike path.

A car pulled up, and a woman got out of it wearing the outfit of a McDonald's manager or assistant manager. She walked past us and into the restaurant, and I assumed she worked there.

About 5 minutes later she walked back out of the restaurant, and with her was a man, also in a McDonald's uniform, carrying a big, plain cardboard box labeled CHICKEN MCNUGGETS. Given the effort he was expending carrying the box, I would estimate that it weighed 25 to 30 pounds. She asked him to put the box on her passenger seat, which he did, and then she drove away.

So what, exactly, happened? Here are three possibilities, in no particular order:

• There is a large black market in frozen chicken McNuggets, and the woman was one of the runners for the merchandise.
• Despite massive supply chain computer systems and an amazing trucking system to resupply restaurants, occasional mistakes happen and the McDonald's down the road ran out of McNuggets. The woman became part of the supply chain to keep the flow of McNuggets intact.
• The box did not contain McNuggets at all, but instead contained something interesting like drugs, cash, Iraqi museum artifacts, etc., which would make for a fascinating story in a spy novel.

I have no idea. But it was fun to sit there speculating.

It's similar to a recent mystery we watched unfold at a local Golden Corral restaurant (Golden Corral is an all-you-can eat buffet restaurant in the Southeast, and we often go there for Saturday morning breakfast/lunch. It's kind of a family ritual for us). We were sitting at our table eating, and a man and a woman put their tray down at the table next to us. Both of them were wearing black suits, and the woman additionally wore a long black jacket of some sort, along with black hose and black pumps. They both took their plates and walked to the buffet line. When they returned, their plates were piled high. I mean high -- enough food to feed the entire Brain family along with the two of them. They each took three bites, left a tip and walked out of the restaurant.

What was that??? Perhaps another chapter in the same novel. That Golden Corral and the McDonald's are about 2 miles apart....