Matthew Dicks - Gummi Bears Forever

 

 

I'm sitting in the break room of a McDonald's restaurant in Milford, Massachusetts. I'm eating an Egg McMuffin, and I am not happy. It is the spring of 1987. I'm 16 years old, and it's not the Egg McMuffin, that's causing me to be unhappy, because an Egg McMuffin is the most guaranteed source of joy in my entire day. [audience laughter] But not on this day. I'm upset, because I'm about to meet my mortal enemy for the first time, and I know it's not going to go well. 

 

I've been working at this restaurant for two months now. I actually live three towns away in Blackstone, Massachusetts, but I found out that this place pays $4 and 65 cents an hour, and that's 20 cents more than the White Hen Pantry, five minutes from my house. I figured even though it's a 30-minute drive, the 20 cents will absolutely make up for the time and the gas, which it does not. [audience laughter] But it changes my life in a really significant way, because when I arrive here, I discover the joy of a clean slate. 

 

I'm growing up in a tiny town. 82 kids are in my class. So, the same 82 kids I knew in kindergarten, and they remember everything. And so, when you want to be something different, or you decide you could be something better, no one lets you, because they remember everything. They still talk about the time in sixth grade when I exposed myself to class, [audience laughter] because my gym shorts were a little too short and my underwear was a little too big and it was a little too much manspreading. They talk about it to this day. [audience laughter] 

 

They remember the braces, and the buck teeth, and the bad haircuts, and the free and reduced lunches, and all of that has prevented me from becoming something that I think I could be, and being trapped in what they think I should be. But I've arrived in this new town, nobody knows me. And on the first day of work, Erin Duran comes and asks me if I have a girlfriend, in the way she’s hoping, I say no. That’s never happened to me before. So, this is something. [audience laughter] And it turns out that, because they don’t know me, I can be the thing I think I can be. Suddenly, I have more friends than I’ve ever had in my life. And I’m good at my job, shockingly good.

 

In 1980s, the job at the McDonald’s that is the hardest is running the bin. I have been a public-school teacher for 24 years, and I can tell you that I have not had a day in my classroom as taxing as a day running the bin at McDonald’s during rush hour in 1987. [audience laughter] It is coordinating a kitchen full of 16-year-olds and 60-year-olds, and convincing them all to do work for you at the same time, [audience laughter] and watching a drive-through screen, and listening to cash registers, and figuring out how much food needs to be here at any moment without causing waste and making sure of profit. It’s really hard. And for some reason I can hold all this information right here, and I’m good at it and people respect me for it.

 

But as soon as I got good at it, all I heard was one word, Benji. “You’re great, but Benji’s better. Benji’s the best bin person in this restaurant. Actually, he’s the best person in this restaurant. [audience laughter] He is fantastic, and everyone loves him and everyone respects him. And I hate Benji. [audience laughter] All they do is tell me how great he is And with every single word they say, I hate him more. And then, I discover they’re telling him about me. They’re saying how this guy came in and he might be better than you. [audience laughter] They’re spreading gossip about me to him. And so, we have never met each other, but we hate each other. [audience laughter] And so, this day, we’re coming together for the first time. Our shifts are crossing, and I’m going to meet him.

 

And so, I go out into the dining room at the end of my break just to see him, because he’s already working. And I see him. There’s nothing to this guy, like, he’s not that good looking, he’s not an athlete. He’s got the body of a bass player in a failing high school rock band. [audience laughter] He is nothing. But I watch, and a couple minutes later, I realize I’m wrong, because he’s funny, effortlessly funny. He’s endearing to everyone. He makes the older customers who are waiting for Big Macs actually happy to be waiting for their Big Mac. And the managers love him. He’s good at the bin, like he is really good at calling bin. I hate him so much. [audience laughter] 

 

And because he’s doing my job, I have to run drive-thru today, which is the second hardest job in the restaurant. 80% of the orders go through the window, so 80% of the food will pass through my hands. But that means I need to work with the bin guy the whole time to coordinate and negotiate and make sure everything runs, which means I have to work with Benji. 

 

And so, for the first hour, we don’t talk to each other unless it’s about work. We clearly hate each other. We’re not hiding it in any way whatsoever, but unless it has to do with work, I don’t say a word. And then, after an hour, it gets awkward and I start to think maybe he thinks I’m afraid to say something to him. So, I’m like, “No, I’m going to do something here.” And so, I go up to him and I say, “Why are you coming in at 10:30 on a Saturday? What’s 10:30?” And he says, “I watch Saturday morning cartoons,” which in 1986 is a thing. All the new cartoons, The Smurfs and The Snorks and Super Friends, they’re all out in the morning, and we eat sugar disguised as cereal and we watch these things. [audience laughter] 

 

And he says, “The Gummi Bears start at 9:30 and they end at 10:00, and then I come to work.” And he says it without irony or embarrassment. I can’t believe it. [audience laughter] And so, I walk over to the drive-thru. I drop a bag off. When I come back to the bin, I say, “Listen to me. Dashing and daring, courageous and caring, faithful and friendly with stories to share,” and I take some food and I walk back to the drive-thru.

 

And as I come back over, he is singing before I get to the bin, he says, All through the forest they sing out in chorus, [audience laughter] marching along as their songs fill the air. [audience laughter] And standing next to the bin with Benji, we sing together, Gummi Bears [audience laughter] bouncing here and there and everywhere, high adventure that’s beyond compare, they are the Gummi Bears. [audience laughter] There’s a second verse, a bridge and another chorus. I will not share them with you, but we sing them that day, [audience laughter] because I watch the Gummi Bears too. And to this day, I can sing that song. 

 

And that’s it, a single theme song to a cartoon melts all the ice between us. And 37 years later, he is still my best friend. [audience aww] It is the most significant relationship in my life, with the exception of my marriage. When I get thrown out of my house when I’m 17, Benji takes me in and lets me live in his college apartment. When I’m 21 and I need a credit card and can’t get one, he gives me his extra card and says, “Just use it and pay me when you can.” He saves my life again and again and again. And this day, we live in Connecticut, two miles from each other. 

 

When I think back on that day that I stood at that bin and sang a cartoon song to him, I’m reminded how little it takes to reach out to someone and just open the crack of a window. You just get the window open, and then it becomes a door and it becomes a lifetime. I stood at a bin in a McDonald’s in Milford, Massachusetts, and sang a cartoon song and I ended up with the best friend of my life. Thank you.