McDonald’s Mercury Retrograde Promotion Offers Freebies Wednesday

ACROSS AMERICA — A lot is happening in the skies right now. Though Sunday’s total lunar eclipse is getting all the attention, the fast-food chain McDonald’s wants to remind you Mercury retrograde is going on right now and its restaurants have a deal for that.

But you have to have the McDonald’s app for that. The fast-food chain is offering a free McChicken or McDouble sandwich Wednesday with the purchase of a medium order of french fries for people who have the app, USA Today reported.

The promotion is national in scope, but it’s a good idea to contact your local McDonald’s stores to make sure they’re participating.

You may mentally be trying to connect the dots here. We imagine it goes something like this: “Hmm. Mercury retrograde, so McDonald’s is giving away stuff. What’s that about?”

Your confusion is kind of perfect. Here’s why:

If you believe astrologers, little Mercury (the smallest planet in our solar system, now that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet) can cause big problems with communications, travel and a whole lot of other things during this phase of its trip around the sun.

What’s retrograde? It's when something moves in a direction that's contrary to how other similar objects are moving. But Mercury retrograde isn’t real. From Earth, it only appears to travel backward in the sky, an illusion owed to the fact Earth and Mercury orbit the sun at different speeds.

As NASA explains, “the planet does not physically start moving backwards in its orbit. It just appears to do so because of the relative positions of the planet and Earth and how they are moving around the Sun.”

The post continued:

“Normally, the planets move west-to-east through the stars at night. This is referred to as prograde motion. However, [periodically] the motion changes and they move east-to-west through the stars. We call this retrograde motion. The retrograde motion continues for a short time and then the motion switches back to prograde. This seemingly strange behavior is easily understood within the context of a Sun-centered (heliocentric) solar system. The explanation for retrograde motion in a heliocentric model is that retrograde occurs roughly when a faster moving planet catches up to and passes a slower moving planet.”

But to those who practice astrology, Mercury retrograde is a time traditionally associated with “confusion, delay, and frustration,” The Old Farmer’s Almanac wrote. “Think undelivered love letters, email blunders, and frazzled travel plans! This is an excellent time to reflect on the past, however, and it’s said that intuition is high during these periods. Coincidences can be extraordinary.”

It’s also apparently a time for fast food you can eat on the cheap. And get a psychic reading!

Select fans may get a “McDonald’s-inspired” psychic reading by Madam Adam, who invited fans to comment with their names and zodiac signs on TikTok and Instagram posts to qualify for a tarot reading.

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For everyone else, “when Mercury is retrograde, try to remain flexible, patient, and understanding, allow extra time for travel, and avoid signing onto any new contracts that you’re unsure of,” The Old Farmer’s Almanac advised. “Double-check your email responses, and check in with reservations before you take that trip.

“Review projects and plans at these times, but wait until Mercury is direct again to make any final decisions,” the advice continued. “You can’t stop your life, but plan ahead, have back-up plans, and be prepared for people’s shorter fuses and miscommunication.”

The period of retrograde will last through June 2. Mercury goes into retrograde again this summer and early fall, from Sept. 9-Oct. 1, and the planet goes into retrograde again Dec. 28 through Jan. 18, 2023.