I am officially caving on a bad, bad thing. I never let my kids eat fast food and we don’t have a TV and blah, blah, blah, my kids don’t play with guns or call each other names and are freaking perfect. And we are great parents and we keep them out of harm’s way. They interact with their environment and have long attention spans and don’t tend to ask for too much or get too snotty. We’ve sheltered them from all things suburban and stupid. Kept them from having to live down the street from an endless loop of strip and shopping malls on streets named after trees like elms and birch which grow nowhere near there. We’ve done a damn good job, stayed out of Wal-Mart, and the kids know what bears and cows and wild turkeys look like because they’ve seen them close up instead of in books and petting zoos. So when my son while visiting my grandmother in a very suburban senior apartment complex saw yet another pair of golden arches illuminating the gray brown pale blue sky of southern California he said, “Mommy, what’s that? Can we go? What is that yellow M place? What do they have?” My son has made it to five years of age in America and he didn’t know the word “McDonalds.” For this, I believe I should have gotten some kind of award. Then he saw a commercial on grandma’s TV for the Kung Fu Panda (which we did see on account of it was kung fu and mommy is a sucker for all things martial arts). “Mommy! They have Kung Fu Panda’s at the Yellow M place.” And that’s when I started feeling sorry for the deprived nature of my children’s upbringing. I have indeed, messed with their pop culture sensibilities—made it now possible for torture to commence in a public junior high in the future when the other kids discover my son is ‘one of these things that’s not like the other.’ His first black eye will be my fault because of the snobbery that ensues with not knowing enough about the bland and basic that is American culture. And so, right then and there, I changed courses. “Diego? It’s a fast food place. It’s called McDonalds. They sell fries and sodas and meat and get kids to ask their parents to take them because they give away toys from movies with each purchase of an artery clogging meal.” My daughter of course was listening intently to all that was transpiring. “Like Old MacDonald had a Farm, mommy?” “Yeah, like that.” The light bulb went off above both of their heads. “Will you take us to the Yellow M—McDonald’s?” Diego asked. “Sure, if you go in the pool today for swimming lessons.” “Okay,” he said. Meanwhile Paloma, my daughter grabbed her purse and began singing a new song to the tune of “Old MacDonald had a farm” she sang “Old MacDonald has Kung Fu Pandas…” EI EI O