The Great Cheeseburger Rebellion

I am a well-intentioned guy, but I am also a complete flake, and that combination can sometimes produce some very unexpected results. Such was the case on the day of the Great Cheeseburger Rebellion. Despite my dreams of a smoothly functioning fast food society and my complete lack of planning, I somehow managed to kick off a wave of localized burger chaos in the span of my short lunch break one day. Worst of all, there’s probably a nice (possibly “former” now) fast food cashier out there somewhere cursing my stupid face as she relates the cautionary tale of my treachery to friends, family, and future fast food workers, and all I wanted to do was to be a nice guy.

I don’t know why I can’t just stand in line at a burger joint like a normal person. On the exterior, I don’t normally do anything abnormal. I look just like every other forty-something blue collar guy who can’t seem to rush to his next heart attack fast enough. A nice kale and quinoa salad for lunch like my marathon-running girlfriend suggested before I left for work that morning? No, no, I wouldn’t want my murky bloodstream clearing up any. That might make it easier for my next cardiologist to see what kind of damage I’ve really done. These are the kind of thoughts that run through my noggin while I stand there. Move aside, practicality and maturity, we’ve got to make room for the inane, abstract, and utterly unproductive.

I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking about before the man two customers in front of me ordered his two cheeseburgers each with two bottom buns, but I know that once those words rattled past my eavesdropping earlobes, they filled my head with such sudden force that they bulldozed everything else out of the way. Did he just say two bottom buns? Can you do that? Why on earth would you? What sort of heathen splits up the hallowed traditional top bun and bottom bun combination? I could feel the foundations of the customer service industry tremor and see the fabric of society unraveling before my very eyes. It didn’t matter that some small logical part of my brain tried to scream from its sad little corner that this was not that big of a deal and that the guy must have been trying to avoid sesame seeds for reasons of allergy or possibly dentures. What mattered was that he had taken up ideological arms against the established norms and mores of the fast food legacy, and I, for one, was not going to stand by and watch it happen.