Though it’s not yet a medically recognised condition, McRage is a common and prevalent ailment among certain demographics.
You may well have experienced McRage – or, to give it it’s full title, McFlurry Rage – yourself, perhaps on a hot summer’s day when sliding one of those delicious, machine-made flurries of cool, sweet ice cream and chocolatey toppings down your throat and into your belly would fill you with nothing but sugary bliss. Only to be denied because the machine was ‘down’.
The condition presents itself when the anticipating recipient is subsequently denied said McFlurry, and instead of ice cream in their belly, a bitter rage emerges in its place.
And now, an extreme case of McFlurry Rage has been caught on camera.
The incident occurred at an unidentified location in America, where the ice cream machine had reportedly broken down at a local branch of McDonald’s. It’s not an uncommon sight, those machines seem mightily temperamental considering how popular they are.
Anyway, as the woman is seemingly denied the creamy treat, the rage surfaces. This time, however, rather than walking out or resolving themselves to a day without a McFlurry, the woman kicks off, starts hurling pieces of equipment around the place and shouting at staff.
You can watch it here:
As you can see, the McBrawl escalates pretty quickly. Other customers get the McHell out of there sharpish, while staff behind the counter don’t just take cover but start flinging objects back at the woman with all the McRage.
The angry, McFlurry-less customer gets so mad she even attempts to throw someone else’s bag at the staff, though reconsiders after the other person pleads with her not to throw their things at the servers in the video posted to Reddit on Friday by u/britainunwrapped.
The woman then puts down the bag and picks up a large piece of metal which just happens to by lying around and launches that instead. As she exits, a man can be heard shouting ‘You’re going to jail!’ McJail? Yeah let’s say McJail.
The incident raises the always appropriate question though – why are McFlurry machines so often not working?
Well, it’s such a serious subject none other than The Wall Street Journal looked into it, and were surprised at the results.
It turns out, McFlurry machines undergo an intense, daily four-hour cleaning cycle to keep themselves tip-top. If the McDonald’s is open 24 hours, you’ve got a one in six chance of the machine being ‘off’ for cleaning during your visit.
As a spokesperson for the company said:
We regularly service our soft-serve equipment during off-peak hours. Customers who come in during that time may encounter a longer wait time or soft-serve dessert unavailability.
They also added the machines are extremely temperamental, with as many as 25 percent of restaurants not serving ice cream at any one time because of McFaulty machines.
McRage.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.