When you do something whenever you want, feel slightly guilty doing it, and then someone offers you more of it for free – what do you do?

You convert a Big Mac into a donation to Children in Need.

I have amassed 13,223 points on the McDonald’s app. It’s a penny a point (I’ll say no more).
This is worth £12 to Children in Need plus half a double cheeseburger.

What can Children in Need do with this?
If I’m being selfish, the biggest benefit is it will mean they reach their target amount £12 faster, so Matt Baker can cycle a rickshaw 10cm less, get off my screen sooner and stop boring my dinner to a second death.

What did I used to think they do?
I was very lucky and had a privileged and comfortable childhood. Even so, from the perspective of the defendant, it wasn’t all plain sailing.
So I assumed Children in Need was founded to address what was the darkest day in my childhood (and I thought for many others) – the day I was too big to fit into the seats built into the trolleys at supermarkets.

Being in those trolleys was like (I imagine) being on a date where the pedalos have run out, so your date is forced to hire the rowing boat. You get to sail along facing backwards, gaining enjoyment from watching your date’s face contort and strain, as they try to ensure they go at a quick enough speed to impress you, but not so quick that their dominant arm takes over and they spin you both around into a whirlpool.
Imagine this, plus you can point at biscuits and doughnuts, cry, and they get dumped beneath you for you to incubate all the way home as you inhale their freshly baked fumes rising through, and replacing the smell of, your soiled underwear.

The task Children in Need are faced with is simple, but not easy.

The obvious answer is to use the money to build trolleys with bigger seats.
But this is just kicking the can down the road and will create a cycle where as the child grows older, the seats get bigger and bigger relative to the trolley. Until they take up the whole trolley and become the very thing they were built to temporarily replace – the pram.

The less obvious answer is to use the money to teach spoiled kids like me that there are other children out there with real problems and they shouldn’t be lobbying a major charity to become a fabricated metals manufacturer.
But then they’ve just wasted a load of money trying to educate myopic toddlers for whom it would go in one ear and out the other (if it wasn’t for copious amounts of wax blocking their ear canals).
They’d then need to raise more money to do their actual work, until Matt Baker would run out of road in the UK and have to go to France to keep cycling (perhaps this isn’t such a bad idea…?)

The correct answer is to do what Children in Need are already doing – helping children in need and leaving kids like me in their bubbles where they can’t cause too much harm.

I’ve spent so long analysing the morality of what I’m doing, I’ve completely ignored the operational concerns.
I’m not actually going to McDonald’s this morning. But the temple is on my way to the tube. So as I’m walking past, I get within range and fire up the app. Add 3 x £4 Children in Need donations to my basket. Click order and prepare to walk off.
But as I go to swipe up the app to fully close it, something peculiar happens.
A message from Ronald McDonald, “Do you want to eat in or takeaway?”
Excuse me?
Send them the money directly please. I don’t want to be tempted to keep it when I get my wingspan wrapped around a ginormous cheque for £12.
I see if I can submit the order without choosing one of the options. I can’t.
I’m already a few minutes late for work but I’m now forced into the store.
I speak to the lady who’s emptying the bins. She’s an old hand who has never failed to answer any of my, admittedly slightly odd, questions (such as, “Do I need to make sure the sheet of paper lining the tray falls into the bin or can it remain on the tray as I pile it onto the used tray stack? What’s the general consensus? Or is it a horses for courses situation?”).
I present my phone to her and say “I’ve just ordered Children in Need vouchers and I don’t know if it’s gone through.”
She looks at me bewildered, like I’ve just tried to sell her an air guitar, then points to the counter.
I can’t see a quick solution so I decide to pass go and collect £12, I select “Eat in”.
Immediately the app tells me I’m order number 12.
Also immediately number 12 comes up on the big screen above the counter.
Also immediately I’m like, “WTF is going on?”

I queue. Tutting and shaking my head whenever people around me are getting frustrated about slow service and try to catch my eye. I’m not actually annoyed, but the “antsy queuer” is a service I offer and I work full-time.

5 minutes later an uncomfortable silence descends on the McCafe.
On the serving counter, there’s a tray wearing nothing but a sheet of A3.5 paper advertising the return of the Big Tasty to conceal her decency.
The staff begin to whisper amongst themselves in hushed tones. Crowding around the screen which says what goes in each order. There’s an order with no tangible items. They take turns smacking the side of the screen, begging the cyber terrorist to release some fries, or a milkshake, anything!
One or two are convinced it’s a digital poltergeist and make the sign of the cross over their chests. Others are laughing at how badly a customer must have screwed up their order, knowing that for an order to get there money WILL have changed hands. But the vast majority of them couldn’t care less.
It’s a lady from this last bucket who pushes the ghostbusters out of the way and presses the “order filled” button.
She turns around to the counter and shouts “Yes, order number 12!”

Everyone in the restaurant freezes. The McFlurry machine is no longer the coldest thing in the room, only the sultriest. You could hear a pin drop. A Mexican standoff. Customers stare at staff, staff stare at customers, Clooney stares at a goat, I stare at an empty tray.

Eventually I step forth and approach the counter. There’s gasps, boos, cheers, jeers, tears, and more than a few leers… but only one pro bono buccaneer!
I get there and grip the sides of the tray, but don’t lift it off the tarmac yet.
The server has her poker face on (which is also her actual face), “Any sauces?”
I look down at the empty tray, then back up at her, and I realise she’s playing me. I counter, “Just some mayonnaise please”.
“We don’t do mayonnaise.”
“I know.”
Most of her face remains unreadable, but her eyes narrow, as if to say “If you don’t leave now, the underside of this tray will be the last thing you ever see.”

The tray is lighter than I’m used to and I unintentionally propel it off the counter. It comes within a gnat’s cock of my sniffer and has rotated 90 degrees during its ascent. Fortunately there’s nothing on it to fall off.
Holding it with my thumbs wrapped over the lips as paperweights, I head straight towards the bin.
I get there and the egghead has just finished changing the bags.
I ask, “Do I need to bin the paper or can I just stack it? And if so, why?”
She doesn’t even look up at me, “Just do what you want.”
So I do my usual. I barge the tray against the cat flap of the bin and let the tray dangle there for no more than a second. My hand at no point touching any part of the bin. I yank the cat back out. My policy is: if the paper has fallen into the bin, stack the naked tray. If the paper still remains on the tray, tuck it into bed fully clothed and put a sick bucket on the side.
On this occasion, the paper drops straight to the bottom of the empty postbox like a heavy letter which should have had two stamps. Looks like this Emperor’s not wearing any clothes tonight…

If you’d like to donate to the Get Baker Off The Bike campaign, please visit www.bbcchildreninneed.co.uk