The Price of a Soul is 20 Chicken McNuggets

I don't recall precisely how old I was when I encountered my first deadly sin. I must have been around 14 or so, circa 1984-85. We had been in Appleton visiting my grandmother who I recall was supposed to join us for brunch or lunch on Sunday before we headed back home to Janesville. I thought she opted out of dining with us because he said she was not feeling well, though my mom has a different recollection. I recall that my Grandmother gave my Uncle Jeff $50 to take us out. My mom doesn't remember that. I am going with Grandma paying for breakfast. It makes the story better. My father was visibly disappointed, though unsurprised. I, on the other hand, was elated because my Uncle Jeff ultimately took us to McDonald's in her stead with $50 DOLLARS FOR MCDONALDS CIRCA 1984!!! and advised us in clear and certain terms that we could, "order whatever your want." 

So we say our good-byes and head out for lunch. I wish I could say the ride to McDonalds was as ceremonious as it should have been given the spiritual fireworks that were on the way. 

Before getting further into this tale of teenage defiance, parental exasperation, and mortal sin, some background information is necessary. When I was a teenager and young adult, I could consume astonishing amounts of food. Significantly more than most other teenage males. I also ate with an alacrity that bordered on the miraculous. So impressive were my powers of consumption that one of my college roommates once looked at me in astonishment, having gotten no more than 25% into his meal as he watched me finished, and uttered, "Oh my god, you are like a f'ing Hoover." I remember watching the Simpson's episode where he sued an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant for false advertising when they stopped serving him because the restaurant was running out of food and thinking, I wonder how close I could get to that? Honestly, I don't know how my mom survived those years.

The second thing you need to know is the definition of "penurious." According to Merriam Webster, "penurious" means "given to or marked by extreme stinting frugality." My father, who had many good qualities, was, regrettably, penurious. In this regard he was more like his mother than he would have cared to admit. Why then, you may ask, did she give such an extravagant sum for a meal at McDonalds? This would demand a long and sordid tale about Catholic guilt and the dilemmas they cause; however, the short version is that she felt more guilty about not going to lunch with us than she did about parting with the fifty. 

The third thing you need to know is that my father, despite attending Catholic schools from grade school through high school, was a professed secular humanist. One of the best things about my father is that he loved to talk about ideas and so we spent more time talking about religion and philosophy than one would expect from a middle class family in the GM-driven blue collar town of Janesville, Wisconsin. My dad would talk about why he believed what he did and his reasons for not following the Catholic faith of his youth or any other formal creed for that matter and he was thoughtful and articulate about it. I loved these conversations and took them to heart. 

Back to the story. So my dad struggled mightily spending money despite that fact that we were not impoverished. Good example, I was a decent baseball player and was getting better during my early teen years. Made the all-star game and tournament team when I was fifteen. Quality equipment was becoming important. So my dad decides he is going to get me a baseball glove. Awesome, right? And honestly, he ended up getting me a sweet glove, a Wilson A2000. That being said, he got me a "second," you know, the kind with blemishes that don't effect performance but ensure all your friends know you couldn't afford a regular model. Except we could have afforded the regular model. Anyway, this is how my dad was. Like I said, penurious. 

I honestly don't know the kind of psychological gymnastics having fifty dollars to spend at McDonalds was causing him, but he surely was experiencing some impressive twisting and twirling and general nausea over the choice facing him, a choice that left him with no excuse to deny any of us anything on the menu. I of course intuitively understood this and, being kind of a jerk teenager, took it as a both an opportunity and a challenge to be met.

Once we get to McDonalds, Jeff says we can order whatever we want. My dad then decides he is going to take our orders and asks us all what we want. I have no idea what everyone else ordered, but when it came time for my order I advised my father that I would be having a quarter pounder with cheese, fries, a Coke, and a 20 piece order of Chicken McNuggets. The funny thing is that I don't think it registered with him at first and he just sort of repeated the order back to me. Then his expression changed. Although he had a baseball cap on, I could see his face reddening, a combined look of exasperation, disbelief, and fury descended over him. He glanced at my mom who, if I recall things correctly, gave him a look that succinctly conveyed the message, "this is your deal not mine." Even my Uncle Jeff tried to fade out of the orbit of my dad's burgeoning fury (though I think my uncle was secretly amused). 

My dad was a talker but found himself for the briefest moment bereft of words. Then just as suddenly, he blurted out, "Jesus, Pat, gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins." Taking the Lord's name in vain isn't great either, but I kept that to myself. I still don't know if this was a question, like, "Pat, did you know gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins?" Or if instead he was being didactic, seeing this a teaching moment in which he was advising me that gluttony is indeed one of the seven deadly sins, and I should be aware of this in the context of my order, as one should probably not put their immortal soul in everlasting peril for Chicken McNuggets. Or if this was just one of those moments when an interior thought is so jarring as to be unintentionally vocalized, not really a statement about anything but more a reflection of the surprise that the thought arose in the first place or that the circumstances that gave rise to it could exist in fact, in the tangible world, one unimagined but actual. He was legitimately furious, but I think my mom and uncle were honestly trying to suppress laughter. I gave no ground. "Grandma told you to let us order what we want. This is what I want."

I could tell that my dad did not want to give an inch here and frankly, as a dad now myself, I recognize that this was one of those moments when the parental prerogative of behaving inconsistently with an utterance should not only have been okay but warranted, especially if my dad truly thought my order was excessive and in danger of condemning me to eternal damnation. But that was not my father. He arrived at secular humanism because he could not accept what he considered to be the inconsistencies, contradictions, and irrationalities that he found inherent in organized religion. And so, he could not accept being inconsistent with my grandmother's and my Uncle Jeff's instruction to let us, "order what we want." Besides, I assured my father, it wouldn't be gluttony if I could eat everything and not get sick, having some familiarity with the Roman empire and the gluttonous tendencies of its most debauched emperors. I was an avid reader.

In spite of the peril to my immortal soul that my hitherto nonbelieving father recognized as being present in a score of McNuggets, my dad assented and let me order what I wanted. I don't recall that the task of finishing everything was overly difficult, me being a Hoover and all, though it if were, I would never have let him know it. I do remember lunch was suffused with a sense of fury but I would not back down. Perhaps the smartest thing I did that day was to refrain from asking if I could have an apple pie after I finished. The temptation to do so was strong. I may be an inveterate sinner, but I am not wholly without tact. 

There really isn't much else to the story other than to say the ride back to Janesville was slightly uncomfortable. As I remain among the living, I cannot say for certain whether I lost my immortal soul that day, though I will say those McNuggets were the most delicious I have ever had.