a memory of parenting my child

When my daughter was two years old, we still lived in Omaha. A Fuddruckers restaurant came to town.  Fuddruckers might still exist, but I haven't seen one in years.  I only patronized a place like Fuddfuckers, as I usually referred to the place, to please my daughter.  Fuddruckers mostly sells hamburgers, fries and drinks. Their special thing is the toppings bar for the burgers, and, in the mid-eighties in Omaha, anyway, games that cost money to play. The restaurant had a noisy game arcade.

For my daughter, the favorite feature was the way they announced your name when your burger was ready. "Rosie your burger is ready!"  Hearing her name called in the exotic environment thrilled her.
They took names for each burger so my name was called and her name was called. Thrill city. For a two year old.

She loved to hear her name, then rush to claim her food, and then carefully select her toppings.

My memories of Fuddfuckers are a little faint. I remember that I always called the place Fuddfuckers, pretending I didn't know I was saying it wrong.  I always used profanity in front of my child. I decided, while still pregnant, that I would not be a hypocrit in the way I talked to her, that I would talk to her like anyone else.  No baby talk and no edited profanity withheld. So I said Fuddfuckers, and every time I did, it titillated her a bit.

We loved Fuddfuckers. The clanging, pinging game machines, the endless announcement of ready burgers, background music. A blaring cacophony of suburban, middle class exotica, an escape from our very dull life in very dull Omaha.

At this time, Rosie was really into She-Ra, Princess of Power, which was a cartoon show. At the time, He-Man was a popular boys cartoon and She-Ra was an attempt to  cater to little girls, to sell them junk at commercial breaks, to appeal to the different market.  I didn't let Rosie watch it at home but she spent every weekend with her father during the two years of our custody battle. She watched it there. And she talked about She-Ra, I heard her, I tuned in.

My point about the visitation is that she spent a lot of time with different rules. Her father and his mother, who really took care of her during the visitations, let her watch a lot of crap on television. And Rosie was in love with She-Ra, Princess of Power.

At Fuddfuckers, the kids at the register, very young kids themselves, sixteen, seventeen, were happy to write down 'She-Ra, Princess of Power' on the burger order, and then to call out 'She-Ra, Princess of Power, your burger is ready".

I love all the easy, little ways you can make a kid happy.  It made me happy to make her happy.

I wonder if she remembers the simple but happy times we had at Fuddruckers.