the Big Mac
✨when you're struck into navigating life's invisible lines✨
First, some housekeeping: When I began publishing on Substack, I didn’t have a readership, so some of my essays got published to an audience of zero and have lived in the archives. Now that I’ve got wonderful readers, like you, I’m keen to reawaken a few pieces. This essay captures one of my all-time favorite personal stories. Enjoy! And please like it, if you do, by clicking the heart or leaving a comment. (Or, if you want to show your support in a next level way, treat me to a chai. I’m just saying, it would surely fuel this writer to keep showing up in your Saturday morning inbox.)
Now, about the time I got Big Mac’d…
Sixth grade. I’m walking home from the bus stop… getting the mail… cars zooming by on our busy street. And I feel it. Out of nowhere. I’m struck.
I look over my right shoulder, and there, sliding down my navy Jansport backpack, is a Big Mac. An uneaten McDonald’s Big Mac. Someone from a passing car had thrown it at me. Splat.
That peach-colored sauce, shredded lettuce, the seeded bun. It’s all there, sliding down my body.
I run inside my house. Laughing, crying, stunned; laughing, crying, stunned. On repeat.
“Mom!” I shout desperately. “I got hit by a Big Mac!?!” These words are most unexpected, to say and to hear. But the evidence speaks for itself.
I don’t remember what my mom said, but I do remember us vacillating between laughter, shock, embarrassment, anger then back to tear-filled giggles. Was it funny? Yes; indeed, it was. Were my feelings hurt? Yes, they sure were. I was humiliated. Who else had driven by and seen me like that? Who all was laughing at my expense? (Besides me and my mom.)
So where is the line between laughing at yourself and not being okay with a humiliation?
I started thinking about this invisible line after watching the Will Smith Oscars—you know, the Oscars where Will Smith went onto the stage and smacked Chris Rock after he’d made a rude joke about the appearance of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Will’s emotional (and violent) response to the comedian’s jab garnered tremendous attention, world-wide. In a culture that seems eerily eager to cancel someone—anyone—based on singular moments in the scope of a grand life, the Will Smith incident is relevant for all of us to ponder.
This is not a piece on my opinion of Will Smith’s actions.
Instead, I’m most interested in the before part. The moments just before a non-life-threatening but (for sure) line-crossing and inappropriate action. The moment before telling a mean joke about someone’s physical appearance. The moment before responding to an insult with a physical altercation. The moment before throwing a Big Mac at a school girl from one’s car.
I imagine the Big Mac’rs in their car. Presumably, they’d just been to McDonald’s, which was about a mile up the road from my mailbox. And I imagine that as the passenger unwraps his afternoon snack, the driver says, “I dare you to hit that kid with your Big Mac.” Impulsively, the passenger imagines doing it, and accepts the challenge.
And then he does it. Unthinkably rude. But, still, impossibly funny. Funny like prank calls before Caller ID. Funny like Buddy getting resiliently hit by a taxi in Elf. Funny like viral reels of dogs on Instagram with human voiceovers.
The Big Mac’rs probably laughed hard in the aftermath, maybe even cried from laughter. Maybe even peed themselves a little. Because, let’s face it, it’s funny, in an anonymous sense.
And now, some 35 years later, I imagine that the Big Mac’rs are probably dads, maybe grandpas, and amidst their hardships of adulthood—because, let’s be real, life throws everyone some heavy stuff—they also have this funny story that they might tell in certain circles. “Bullseye! We hit the kid with a Big Mac during a drive-by dare!” A good story from two grown men about their rebellious days, void of consequences, from way back.
But who knows, maybe amidst the reminiscent laughter, they also cringe at the thought that on the other side of that backpack was an actual kid, maybe about the same age as their now-daughter or granddaughter. A child who got hit—out of nowhere and for no logical reason—by a flying saucer of humiliation and had to then deal with the mess, confront her raging adolescent embarrassment and become fearful thereafter of her walk home from the bus stop.
Who knows?
These days, someone would likely catch the incident on film. A quick snapshot might reveal the license plate. The Big Mac’rs would be forced to pay brutal legal consequences and a forever Google search stain from the media pick-up of the story. I can see it: “Big Mac Attack: Men Arrested for Assaulting Child.” McDonald’s might sue them. Maybe. Who knows.
I suppose it all comes down to how we account for the experience of ‘the other.’ How we imagine not only the consequences of our actions for ourselves, but also the consequences of our actions for them; how our actions play out in the stories of others–the anonymous (or perhaps familiar) other in a given situation. Because there is always an other. As humans, we are far more tightly woven to each other in life’s container than we like to acknowledge.
It comes down to how able we are to ask ourselves in the moments before we act: What will my action mean for them?
Also, on the flip side, when we feel humiliated, it matters how we internalize the uncomfortable stuff, the weird stuff, the unexpected stuff. I can assure you, no one expects to be disgracefully hit with a Big Mac in public. AND, I’m glad the Big Mac’rs weren’t persecuted for an impulsive, albeit inappropriate, action that momentarily humiliated me. Was the incident a big deal? In my little life in sixth grade, it was. And yet, since then, I’ve inspired a lot of laughter with this anecdote.
So, it also comes down to how able we are to ask ourselves: What could my immediate hurt eventually become for me? Perhaps it’s not all so bad if we step aside from our egos and reactionary emotions.
We all have stories. We all suffer. We all cause pain for others, whether or not we intend to.
The call is to recognize the humanity in each other; the call is also to make space for bad decisions; the call is also to be accountable for our actions; and ultimately, the call is to gracefully grow forward in the messy journey that we’re all on.
One big, messy journey and a lot of people walking on invisible lines.
Let’s keep growing.
Originally written by Lindsay Hurty on May 3, 2022 and slightly edited in April, 2025.
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Other ways I can support your inner self today:
Cozy up with me and my dog for this week’s story — “the wait” — on Becoming Everwell with Linds.
Enroll in my FREE Masterclass: The 5-Step Framework to Thriving as a Midlife Mom. Or, take my QUIZ.
Listen to this podcast episode, where I was recently interviewed by a death doula (Traci Arieli) on her podcast: Comforting Closure. (Learn more about my Forever Letter Writing services. Be in touch if you’re curious.)
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I absolutely loved everything about this!
I remember that Big Mac day so well.