John Mulaney
One Black Coffee
My dad loved us. He just didn’t care about our general happiness or self-esteem. I remember, one time, we were really little kids. I have two sisters and a brother, and all four of us were in our family car ride for three hours going to Wisconsin. My dad was driving, going down the highway in our white van with wood around the side. ‘Cause you remember when you wanted your car to be made of wood? You remember that era? Where we were like, “How much wood can we get on this car… without it catching on fire?” But then the big announcement. “We here at Plymouth-Chrysler can put a saucy stripe of wood safely on the outside of your car, for all those times you’ve looked at your minivan and thought, ‘Huh! It needs a belt.'” So, we’re going on the highway. We’ve been on the road for three hours. And in the distance, we see a McDonald’s. We see the golden arches. And we got so excited. We started chanting, “McDonald’s! McDonald’s! McDonald’s! McDonald’s!” And my dad pulled into the drive-thru, and we started cheering. And then, he ordered one black coffee for himself. And kept driving. And, you know, as mad as that made me as a little kid, in retrospect, that is the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. How perfect is that? He had a vanload of little kids, and he got black coffee. The one thing from McDonald’s no child could enjoy. My dad is cold-blooded. He once shushed a kid during Lion King on Broadway. That actually happened. We were at Lion King on Broadway, and there was a five-year-old behind us going, “Look, it’s Pumbaa! Look, it’s Timon!” And my dad turned around and said, “Are you going to talk the entire time?” He’s my hero.