Free Mochas at McDonald's

Monday mornings are the worst, especially if it's summer and you still have to work. Luckily, McDonald's is running a promotion to make your Monday a little bit sweeter.

Starting on Monday, July 13, "participating" McDonald's stores across the country will be handing out free mochas every Monday through August 3, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. This promotion has been creatively termed "Free Mocha Mondays," although I'll take a free mocha no matter what the promotion's called.

The big worry is the "participating locations" clause, which is a little hazy to me. I'm not quite sure how many McDonald's stores will be participating, but only hope that one near me will be a pal and "participate."

I'm not personally familiar with McDonald's drink array (I usually go for the water or orange juice, being kind of old school), but apparently the free mochas are part of a new line of McCafe hot and iced mochas.

I guess I'm the type of person McDonald's is targeting, then. They want people like me to get a taste of their McCafes and get hooked, so they'll be a long-term customer. Apparently, the company is putting a lot of faith in this campaign, because it's reportedly budgeting $100 million just to market the campaign.

Anyway, on to the specifics. You can either get a free 7 oz iced mocha or an 8 oz hot mocha. This presents a predicament for a person like me, because my first instinct is to go for the 8 oz mocha, because it is one ounce bigger. However, upon reflection, I realize that it's the middle of summer, and I'd much rather have something nice and cool rather than something in a thermal cup first thing in the morning.

A horrible predicament, indeed. Especially for someone indecisive. I guess the only thing to do is to alternate weeks.

From the pictures I've seen of the mochas, they look tasty enough, swirled with milk or whipped cream. The iced one looks awfully like a dessert, to tell the truth, but I don't have a problem with that. I don't mind eating-or drinking-dessert for breakfast. I wonder how many calories one of those McCafe's packs.

I don't usually hit up McDonald's in the mornings, but this incentive might just get me to a drive-thru window on a Monday morning this summer.