It's an experience we've all had. You're craving an sugary, ice-cold treat. You drive to McDonald's, excited to order an ice cream cone or maybe a McFlurry. But when it's finally time to place your order, your heart breaks. You've just heard what could possibly be the six worst words in the English language: "The ice cream machine is broken."

"There has to be a way to prevent this," you think to yourself. That's where McBroken comes in.

McBroken is a website designed by a 24-year-old that aims to help prevent further heartbreak (and wasted time, I guess.) The site displays a map of every McDonald's in the US, represented by dots. If a location has a working ice cream machine, it's a green dot. If the machine is broken, red dot. A column on the right displays statistics on how many ice cream machines are currently broken. At the time of writing, 9.89% of all the McDonald's in the US have a broken ice cream machine, with 15.66% of those in Houston.

Rashiq Zahid came up with McBroken over the summer after he attempted to order a McSundae, but came to realize that the ice cream machine was not working.

"I was like, there must be something that can be done about this,” Zahid said.

So he did what anyone in his position would naturally do. He built a bot.

Zahid intended his website to be a joke, but people have found it to actually be useful. “I just made it for fun,” said Zahid. “But people were like ‘Wow, this is the best thing I’ve seen this entire week.’”

Even David Tovar, McDonald's VP of US Communications, seems to support the tool. “Only a true @McDonalds fan would go to these lengths to help customers get our delicious ice cream!” he tweeted.

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