So, I took JP up to Yankee stadium last night for his first professional ballgame, and we got there early. We were meeting up with my uncle, who had the tickets, and we were waiting outside of the stadium. At about 6pm. Outside of a McDonald’s. Which sells Happy Meals.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I have nothing in particular against McDonald’s, other than the food tastes bad, they are an evil commercial enterprise bent on a Matrix-like domination of the universe, and I’m a pretentious Yuppie who only serves his kid artisanal farina. But I haven’t exactly gone out of my way to not feed JP chain fast food. It’s just that living in New York makes it easier to avoid. Not every corner in Brooklyn is a home of the Whopper or whatnot, which is not to say that a slice of pizza is any healthier.

That said, JP has been talking up the virtues of the Happy Meal of late. I don’t really know where he got it from. I’ve never bought him one, and he says his mother hasn’t either. Perhaps it’s a genetic attraction, similar to his innate ability to be aware of and play Angry Birds despite the fact that I don’t own a smartphone.

So, with time to kill, and JP asking for food, and the golden arches throbbing and gleaming like the Orgasmotron from Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” I caved. I bought him a Happy Meal. And JP was very happy and very quiet, when he wasn’t telling me all about the Kung Fu Panda 2 toy that came with his boxed meal.

Fries weren’t bad.