When I was quite young (maybe 5-9) my family did a lot of trips to the U.S. for my dad’s IBM server training stuff. Something that made me anxious was the border crossing because my dad got all serious and told us to be quiet and it felt intimidating.

As a consequence of being so young I couldn’t distinguish between Customs and a toll booth so they made me anxious too. And one day we were driving up to what looked like a huge toll booth or Customs stop and I was terribly anxious until we got close enough and it was this super weird McDonald’s. A gas station below, restaurant on top. It had such an impact on me that I spent the years after being hopeful any time I saw customs or tool booths that it was this fantastical McDonald’s.

Also I once went to a McDonald’s with model trains running along the top of the walls. That was super cool.