Two moms said they recently got more than they bargained for when visiting their local McDonald's for a couple of Happy Meals. Instead of finding a brightly colored toy nestled in the red cardboard box, they say their children discovered yellow box cutters served with their food.
Detroit-area mom Kayla Almashy was the first to raise alarm bells in a Facebook post shared on May 22. In the post, she said her daughter handed her the Happy Meal “toy” received from a drive-thru order, only for Almashy to discover the plastic yellow item was actually a box cutter. While commenters suggested calling corporate, notifying the police or preparing a lawsuit, Almashy said in the original post text that she simply wanted to warn other area parents to keep an eye out.
“I just can’t even imagine if it was a little one or a child with special needs who tried ripping open their ‘toy’ this could of been so much worse,” she added in the comment thread. She also responded to another commenter, saying that the incident had already been reported to local authorities and McDonald’s corporate.
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About three weeks later, another Michigan mom, Dawn Paret, said she also found a box cutter in her child's Happy Meal. Paret told local news station WXYZ Detroit that she brought her 7-year-old daughter to a McDonald's for a Happy Meal on June 11, only to find a yellow box cutter packed away in their order.
Paret said her daughter brought the strange looking “toy” to her father before opening it.
“The amount of worry and rage that went through me - I have never experienced,” Paret wrote in her social media post, adding that she demanded answers from McDonald’s as to how this could have happened.
Paret explained in comment threads that she had already returned to the McDonald’s in person, though she was unsatisfied with the answers the young weekend manger gave her.
“Even as a mistake, it needs to be corrected immediately. Don't use a Happy Meal box as your ‘catch all’,” she wrote.
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While the box cutters were discovered by adults quickly enough to avoid causing any harm to either child, both moms wrote that they cannot help but think about what might have happened if a younger child had received the tools and attempted to open or play with them.
In an email statement, McDonalds told USA Today: “The safety of customers and employees is our top priority, and we take these claims seriously. We have been in touch with the customers involved and are continuing to investigate.”
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