McAnecdote

Here's a paraphrasing of my dad's recent experience at McDonald's:

Worker 1: The apple pies are still baking, so it'll be a few minutes.
Dad: That's fine, I'll go put cream and sugar in my coffee.
Worker 1: We do that for you now. How much do you want?
Dad: Uh, X cream and Y sugar.
{ssssip}
Dad: This coffee is room temperature.
Worker 1: Oops, that was on the top burner and we forgot to turn it on. I have some hot coffee over by the drive thru; I can just get you a new cup.
Dad: Well I already have the cream and sugar the way I want; could you just pop this in the microwave?
Worker 2: {microwaves coffee} How's that?
Dad: It's actually---
Manager: No no no no no we can't microwave coffee! I can just get you a new cup.
Dad: That's OK; I already mixed this one the way I like it. Can't you just put this in a little bit longer?
Manager: We've had lawsuits over coffee burning people; we have to make it at a certain temperature. I'll just get you a new cup.
Dad: Don't worry about it. I'll just take what I have.
{waits for pie}
Worker 1: Pies are ready. Be careful; they're hot.
Dad: Oh, were they in the microwave or something? [/smirk]

Oh, and the hot pie? Yeah, it burned his tongue. (In fact, I've had my share of tongue-burningly-hot McDonald's pies that I had to wait for them to cool down to be edible.) But the lukewarm coffee was safe, so thank God for that. I guess the difference is that it's hard to spill a McDonald's pie all over your lap.

I will say though, in spite of McDonald's alleged restrictions on coffee temperature, the last time I got a coffee there I had to wait TWENTY minutes for it to be drinkable. That's no exaggeration; I looked at my watch. Sorry, I don't buy the "but people don't want cold coffee!!" argument. When I order coffee, I want to drink it, you know, like soon. That's why I bought it. I don't want it half an hour from now when I'm already done eating breakfast.