Plain

I recently found myself craving fast food. Which is to say, I had a hankering for a hamburger, or, more specifically, a cheeseburger. I located the nearest fast food restaurant and quickly placed my order. I asked the small Korean woman behind the counter for a cheeseburger. The $6,000 worth of electronic communication equipment she had strapped to her head, which was primarily used for taking orders from the drive through windows, made it look as though I had just placed my lunch order with Mission Control in Houston.

Liking surprises as I do just not on my burger, I ordered my cheeseburger plain. I do not eat fast food with enough regularity to remember the various combinations of lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise, special sauce, pickles and onions that each chain favors. In fact, in my haste to find my fix, I didn’t even notice which fast food restaurant I was in. So, I tried to keep it simple by eliminating all but the basic burger, cheese and bun; seemed somehow safer and certainly more predictable.

Lucille," her name tag read, with a modicum of cheer, took my order and my money and replaced them with a number. I was No. 198. I briefly wondered if 197 people had actually placed orders ahead of me today - possible, but hard to imagine as it was only 11:00 am? No matter, the small bag containing my lunch was ready in an instant. I sat down at the nearest reasonably clean table and began to unpack the desire of my graving. Once the wrapper was off I noticed immediately that the bun concealed a distinctly cheese-less burger; sad really, and inconvenient, but fixable, or so I thought. I went back to counter to point out the problem, perhaps I was simply given the wrong bag and somewhere someone was experiencing minor heart palpitations over the presence of cheese on their burger. But alas, I was the only non-employee within eye sight. (The other 197 had obviously come and gone.)

When Lucille finally reappeared from the bowels of the kitchen, I asked about the missing cheese. Still talking madly into her headset as if she were in the middle of landing the space shuttle, Lucille quickly grabbed for her copy of the receipt and snapped, you order plain!" Yes," I replied, I ordered my – cheeseburger – plain." She gazed at me for a moment, as if trying to decipher the foreign language I was speaking, or trapped in some sort of multi-tasking-gone-bad stupor, and finally replied, So, do you want me to put cheese on that?" Yes, please," I said.