All I Want for Christmas is Coronary Artery Disease

My Christmas Wish List
1. Bunny slippers
2. New Madonna CD
3. McDonald's Arch Card
4. Lemon zester

Wait, back up. McDonald's Arch Card? Nobody has that on their Christmas list. Or if they do, it's time to stage a family intervention.

McDonald's, apparently tired of sitting on the sidelines during the seasonal height of consumerist fury, is attempting to nose its way into the frenzy with the new Arch Card. Gift cards are big business these days. They're a delightful way to say, "I have no idea what your really want, but at least I've given it enough thought to narrow it down to this store."

Launched in November, McDonalds is making a big marketing push to get Santa to pop an Arch Card into the kids' stockings, next to the new toothbrush, the penlight, and the orange-apple-tangerine combo in the toe. Santa, if you love the little children, you will do no such thing.

The concept is nothing new. McDonald's has been selling books of gift certificates as the perfect little stocking stuffers for many years. But that was before we realized we Americans were choking our arteries with special sauce and padding our asses with Big Macs, super sized fries and sugary Cokes.

But McDonald's is healthy now, you rationalize. Yes, it's possible to eat healthy at McDonalds, and I suppose you could score some green tea in a crack house if you asked nicely, but that's probably not why you went in there.

As a rule, I don't go into McDonalds since seeing the movie "Super Size Me," but if I did, I doubt I'd see many kids ordering the healthy Fruit and Walnut Salad. There's no two ways about it--the kid is getting a Happy Meal. And I'd bet they're not selling very many of the "Apple Dippers" (sliced apples and caramel sauce), but they get some credit for trying. No, more than likely, the kid will get a cheeseburger, small fries and child-sized Coke which packs 650 calories and 23 grams of fat. Force a kid to eat a salad at McDonald's and you've got a kid who might just start calling you "Mommie Dearest." It would be like bringing a child to Disneyland and making him sit on a bench all day, watching other kids ride Thunder Mountain Railroad. You might have a social worker knocking on your door to investigate allegations of emotional abuse.

These Arch Cards come in denominations from $1 to $50. So, if you really love a person, would you give them the $50 or the $1 version? The $1 card will get them a double cheeseburger from the Dollar Menu. That's 460 calories, 23 grams of fat (11 grams of saturated fat), 80 mg of cholesterol and a whopping 1140 mg of sodium. That means 45% of the calories are coming from fat, way more than the 25 to 35% the U.S. government recommends for adults, and they've just scarfed down almost half of their recommended daily sodium intake for the day--and they're probably still hungry. Quite possibly, this is the cheapest way in America to get fat, short of eating Crisco straight from the can.

But, give a person $50 worth of McDonald's slop and they're likely to ingest about 10 meal deals. If their penchant is for a Big Mac, large fries and a large coke, that means 14,000 calories, 550 grams of fat (150 grams of saturated fat), 800 grams of cholesterol, 13,600 grams of sodium and virtually no nutritional value. A $50 Arch Card is a cruel gesture--It'd be like giving my grandmother a skateboard.

If your spouse gives you a $50 McDonald's gift certificate this Christmas, the next thing you might hear is, "Hey, hon, what say we just go ahead and bump up that life insurance policy to $2 million. How 'bout it, sweetie pie?"

Going to McDonald's is something you should do only when you're terribly desperate, when nothing else is open, when no one is looking, or to placate a child who has been hopelessly brainwashed to believe that she can't live another minute until she has all six Power Rangers action figures. You don't need your friends and family to enable such activity by giving you McPlastic.

Tags: McDonald's, Arch, Card