Japanese love McDonalds

There is a McDonalds right down the road from where I live. With it being so close you would think I would be there every day. Luckily for my waistline, my pocketbook doesn't allow me to eat out very much. However there are times when one needs a nice treat and like all children who love fries and ice cream, my kids love to convince me it is a good idea to make the small trip over to those golden arches. During summer, it becomes all that much easier to convince me because the inside of our old apartment was always hot and sticky feeling. No insulation made using the air conditioner feel wasteful and a place like McDonald's with so many customers was bound to have just enough air conditioning even in this air conditioning averted country. Getting ourselves a nice soft serve ice cream cone and enjoying it in the cool air of shop. This would be the perfect reprise from the summer heat. So we walked the ten minutes trying our best to hop from shaded area to shaded area along the side walk until we aw those beautiful golden arches and the expected line of people all waiting to have their order taken. And that line was there, just as expected. Every person in line was looking a little droopy like a plant left without water for too long. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why all of the doors were wide open. Weren't they letting all of the cool air out? There was no cool air. There was no air conditioning. Only lots of sweaty people and a giant box that i figured out was a big fan. And still everyone was in line to get their mack on. We did as well, but I had promised my kids soft serve and we had already walked all the way.

My son's ice cream melted long before he got it to his mouth. The big box behind him just blew warm air.

The crazy thing is, even after that day the air conditioner continued to be broken or almost two years. That whole first summer, the number of McDonald's goers never wavered and the following summer when things got hot again there were still customers. I have no clue why the cooling wasn't fixed for such a long time but I am even more surprised that even why people knew it was sweltering in there, they ate their lunch in the sauna/restaurant like the heat didn't faze them. My kids weren't able to convince me I needed ice cream or a good time after that day.