Why I’m Sitting Out This McRib Season

Starting today, the McRib has returned for its annual, limited time only run at McDonald’s.

As America’s Foremost McRib Enthusiast™, it is with a heavy (and possibly clogged) heart that I must announce that I will not be participating in the 2019 McRib Season.

This was not an easy decision to make and it is one that has been hanging over my head like a storm cloud as grey as an uncooked McRib patty as summer gave way to fall and McRib Season began to appear on the horizon.

Since the news broke last Friday that the McRib’s return was imminent, I have received more Facebook notifications about it than birthday greetings from random acquaintances and long lost classmates. Add in the texts and the tweets and we’re well into the triple digits when it comes to kind people who’ve reached out to give me a heads up that my favorite processed food on Earth is back.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I am America’s Foremost McRib Enthusiast™.

Do you remember your first McRib?

My first was way back in 1982. It helps that that fateful event coincided with the day I was fitted for my first pair of glasses but that momentous occasion is forever embedded into my mind like restructured pork shavings pressed together to form a miniature rack of ribs. The appointment at the optometrist was over the lunch hour which meant a special weekday trip to McDonald’s where an employee standing outside the drive-thru was offering up samples of a new sandwich called the McRib. I was hooked from my very first taste and returned to school spinning a fantastic tale about being one of the first in town to try the exotic new sandwich. The guys in my second grade class hung on every word with more awe than the time I shared all the details about the stash of Playboys I found under the couch at my dad’s apartment when he ditched me to go to a bar during a weekend visit.

Is your phone’s wallpaper a McRib?

A McRib has been my wallpaper since *checks camera roll* December 13, 2009. That gorgeous specimen you see above was shot with an iPhone 3gs’ three megapixel camera and was a post cyclocross race treat/early birthday gift to myself.

Does your LinkedIn profile pic feature you wearing a McRib t-shirt while holding a McRib?

Mine does and it still doesn’t scare off recruiters.

Did you cross paths with Obama while on a McRib run?

I did. On October 24, 2011 I walked over to our neighborhood McDonald’s only to find La Brea Ave closed because the president’s motorcade would soon be passing by. Turns out he was making a food run of his own with a pitstop at the Roscoe’s Chicken n’ Waffles just around the corner on Pico Blvd.

Do you consider the return of the McRib a National Holiday?

You bet your hoagie styled buns I do.

However, this year I’m sitting out McRib Season for one simple reason: the world is fucked and we all need to do our part to help right the ship by consuming less and eating fewer animals. I know skipping a few dozen sweet, delicious factory made sandwiches (that were developed in a lab) isn’t exactly traversing the Atlantic in a zero emissions sailboat to rip the leaders of the world a new one at the United Nations but it’s a drop in the bucket and for me it’s a big saucy drop.

Yes, I know the slivers of pork scraps that constitute a McRib come from pigs that are already dead but there are a many round trips to McDonald’s that won’t be happening (either by myself or the UberEats driver that I got to know on a first name basis last year) along with all the associated waste.

You know how there’s a running list in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind that amounts to reasons not to take a bath with a toaster?

Well, McRib Season is a stalwart on my reasons to live list.

Between the Dodgers always finding a way to get bounced out of the playoffs and the Nebraska Cornhuskers lurching towards a second decade of futility, fall isn’t an easy time but the McRib has always been there to provide warm and savory comfort and cheer. Giving it up will be a sacrifice but with Top Gun: Maverick coming out next year, there is a beacon to keep me going.

Besides, if I succumb to the urge, rumor has it there’s a pretty decent woke McRib served at a restaurant just a short bicycle ride from our house.