The McDonald's Delivery Man Myth

It started as a whisper, "Did you hear, McDonald's delivers in China."

All through autumn I never saw a trace in Shanghai of the McDonald’s Deliveryman and was convinced the he was a myth at the same level as the Lock Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

I finally witnessed my first drive-by Bid Mac in March. As I slipped out of the giant cast-iron gates that barricade our school from the rest of China, a slender motorized bike caught my eye. The bike was not unique; it was the standard ten-speed with a motor nailed on like the rest of the scooters in China. What caught my attention was the driver. He was decked in a bright red bike jacket and helmet containing the golden “M” that acts like a beacon to the French fries deprived.

A cherry-colored metal box was strapped on the back of the bike, which contained all the deep-fried goodness an American girl could possibly crave.

One of the foreign teachers in my school discovered the number of the local McDonald’s delivery. That information passed faster among the teachers than one of our students’ vicious rumors. Soon that noble McDonald’s Deliveryman was a common sight, zipping down the tree-lined brick walkways of our campus.

His increasing trips to campus peaked today when he greeted me every time I stepped out of my apartment.

In the morning I headed to the fabric market to finally put an end to the ongoing battle for my tailored jeans. The McDonald’s Deliveryman chugged passed me on the way to deliver breakfast to the teachers still fortified in their apartments against the windy spring day.

He nearly ran over my friend and I when we returned victorious around noon. We both chuckled and discussed the possibility of importing the exact havoc motorbikes model to the McDonalds in the United States.

Fearful that the typhoon-force winds would knock all the flowers off the trees, I trekked outside with my camera in the afternoon and ran into the McMan once again. This time I got photographic evidence of the legend in action although, like its peers in the Abominable Snowman and Lock Ness Monster cases, my picture was also blurry.

As I returned to my apartment, I found the Deliveryman stuck in an unintentional trap. The red box previously strapped to his bike, now rested on his back. While he could fit through one side of our apartment’s double glass doors, his satchel of steaming goodness could not. He was caught like a beetle flipped on its back. He flailed his arms, and he wiggled his body, but his hard-shell McDonald’s backpack wasn’t going anywhere. I had to open the second door to release him.

In the evening I went to dinner with a close friend’s parents vacationing in China. I walked through the near lightless campus at 10:30 expecting only the shadowy silhouettes of the uniformly planted trees for companionship. I only received a short beep of warning before The McDonald’s Deliveryman sped by me on the way to the foreign teachers’ apartments.

The McDonald Deliveryman…FACT
Bigfoot….To Be Determined