I shunned fast food. Then I had a kid

When I played Little League softball, our team jerseys, an itchy-but-easily-washed polyester, were a bright primary yellow. Our patron was a local McDonald's franchise that rewarded wins with a free hamburger and small soft drink - a semicovert marketing strategy we happily embraced. In the second year, when our pitcher's accuracy improved dramatically, we had a winning record. That summer, we ate a lot of hamburgers. We'd ride in groups of twos or threes across town to the appointed McDonald's, piling into minivans or, with any luck, Jenny's mom's convertible. We'd slurp Dr. Peppers and devour our just-big-enough burgers. McDonald's was my introduction to onion, minced and reconstituted from its freeze-dried form, and the smallest dab of yellow mustard, its sharpness masked by the sweet-and-tangy ketchup, the perfect-but-always-too-small pickle. After our meal we'd play outside, shaking the Hamburglar jail and squeezing down the too-narrow twisty slides. Our childhoods were waning, but in those long summer evenings, we held on.