Lord knows everyone's had some troublesome times in their lives. Maybe you didn't even realize you were pregnant until cramps started up again, the hollow, throbbing ache that left you so doubled over it was all you could do to crawl on your hands and knees to the cool tiles of the bathroom floor and rest your forehead against the porcelain lip of the tub, and that's when you noticed your thighs were wet. Maybe you wandered much further from the campsite than you intended, searching for a better vantage point to watch that thunderstorm roll across the basin, and as soon as you saw the meticulously tended fire and the horrible hunk of charred meat in it, the half-full water bottle you'd just passed made sense and you realized the coppery smell carried on the wind wasn't "ozone" but blood. One time Jennifer Aniston ate a Big Mac.

Like a pair of pre-ripped jeans from Abercrombie or a distressed logo tee from Zazzle, America's food conglomerates are embracing a more easy breezy natural look when it comes to your food. And as expected, making processed food seem unprocessed involves more processing.

Annual shareholder meetings are the one time when activists traditionally get a chance to berate corporate executives directly, trying to goad them into exchanges. And hey, McDonald's had a pretty decent one yesterday. Featuring racism charges!

Since 1979, the Wall Street Journal has paid tribute to the wealthy and powerful with a little woodcut-style half-column portrait on its pages. Today, perfection has been attained. Ronald McDonald, the costumed creep who has long terrorized children who only wanted some chicken-feet nuggets and a gun toy, got a WSJ "stipple."

McDonald's promised to get in touch with Charles Ramsey, the Big Mac-loving hero of the Cleveland kidnappings, but never did. So over a dozen Cleveland-area restaurants decided to reach out to Ramsey in the Golden Arches' stead, and offer him free burgers for life.

First hot coffee, now broken glass. A Brooklyn gospel singer is suing McDonalds after she allegedly bit into a shard of glass "bigger than a penny" in her chicken sandwich, which she claims ruined her singing voice.

Virginia Maiden had an unusual Tuesday, to say the least. She awoke that morning to find that her 1995 Toyota 4-Runner had been stolen. “She was so confused, didn’t know what was going on, it was just gone,” a co-worker would later tell the press. So Maiden hitched a ride to McDonald's, where she worked the drive-thru window. At some point that day she spotted something in the drive-thru line that shocked her: a 1995 Toyota 4-Runner.

It took three police officers to safely extract an adult McDonald's patron from a toddler's high chair in which he had somehow managed to get himself stuck.

When "fast food" was invented back in the 1950s or whenever, we were cautiously optimistic. A ground hamburger patty and french-fried potatoes served in less time than it takes to raise and slaughter a cow, plant a field of potatoes, and build a fire? Sure, why not? But today it seems that Americans have forgotten how to take their time with their food.

McMuffins all day long! Could McDonald's be ending their illogical policy of only serving breakfast during breakfast hours? CEO Don Thompson seemed to be flirting with that idea during a recent interview with CNBC, saying that McDonald's was working on "innovative ways of us expanding the breakfast hours, and some of those things we'll be seeing here in the near future."

A Utah man who appeared on a recent episode of daytime talk show The Doctors claims he has held on to a McDonald's burger for 14 years — and it looks the same today as on the day he first bought it.

A police officer in Georgia had what is being described as a "severe break in judgment" after he apparently drew his gun on a McDonald's customer who was taking too long to receive his order.

It is fairly well established in Internet lore that cats love cheeseburgers.

A spit-take-inducing story about a McDonald's restaurant in Massachusetts requiring applicants for a cashier job to hold at least a bachelor's degree along with 1-2 years of experience went viral yesterday after being republished by the Washington Examiner along with a "thanks, Obama"-style write-up courtesy of Washington whisperer Paul Bedard.

McDonald's isn't in the top ten favorite restaurants of millennials. Aw shuckz, kidz—checkz outz our friez!

In a move that is predicted to tip the balance of power in the entire U.S. fast food industry and spark an advertising war between top players that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, McDonald's is set to roll out the "biggest launch of 2013," which will reach into every corner of American dining culture: some chicken wrapped up in a tortilla.

A parent who took her two young children to a Chicago-area McDonald's is suing the fast food restaurant because she claims one of her children found a used condom in the play area and then ate it.

Our sister site Kotaku already explained the phenomenon of "Potato Parties" at length, but here's a tl;dr:

The person whose job it is to tweet about Burger King is probably having a worse day than usual. Hackers dropping shoutouts to seapunk icons and indie rappers have taken over Burger King's Twitter account and turned it into a McDonald's ad, claiming, "We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you."

McDonald's is set to become the United Kingdom's biggest book distributor, offering children's books as the world's shittiest "toy" that comes with its Happy Meals.