I love the Big Mac sandwich

I remember a time before I ever had a Big Mac sandwich.

I was a kid, eating a Happy Meal at McDonald's. I was eating a flat hamburger. This was a time before McDonald's employed an army of chemical engineers to make the hamburger into the fluffy solid thing that it is today. Back in my day, the McDonald's hamburger competed with a pile of three credit cards for thinness.

This was also a McDonald's without a PlayPlace. So, I slowly savored those delicious fries and the then huge-to-me, yet rather flat hamburger.

While savoring, I looked around and saw a rather large man opening his big mouth very wide and taking a giant bite of an enormous sandwich. I looked at my tiny hamburger that I was holding between my thumb and index finder. Then I looked over at a delicious advertisement for the Big Mac sandwich, looked back at the man, and I wanted a Big Mac more than anything else.

I don't remember how many more years went by before I actually had a Big Mac sandwich. I think I probably blacked out with wave after wave of ecstasy when I finally had one for the first time.

For me, the Big Mac sandwich is a treat. It's like a once a month kind of thing. I'd rather have a Big Mac than a King Sized Butterfinger Bar. They both have about the same calories, and I love Butterfinger, but I love the Big Mac sandwich more. And I'd much much rather have a Big Mac than a 44 ounce Super Gulp of Coke, which also has the same calories.

And here's some trivia for you. The Big Mac Extra Value Meal has been meal #1 at all McDonald's for years and years and years.

I had the Big Carl at Carl's Jr. and it is a superior burger, but I still love the Big Mac more.

And then a few years ago, I saw this billboard on the freeway that had a huge Big Mac sandwich, and it said, "The Big Mac. My first love."

I almost cried. It was true. And I was pathetic. I think I love everything about McDonald's but that depressing advertisement. I even own stock in McDonald's. I boycotted Big Macs for like a month until I went back to my once a month schedule of eating a Big Mac.

If all you eat is four big macs every day and drink a lot of water, then that's only about 2000 calories, which is how much you're supposed to have anyway. Hmm.

It has everything I love that I would put into a sandwich and nothing I wouldn't. I don't mind good tomatoes, but I dislike the inconsistency of tomatoes in all of the other sandwiches, and the Big Mac doesn't have tomatoes. They even wrote a song about all of the good ingredients in a Big Mac.

I guess I've thought a lot about the Big Mac sandwich.

And then they made the Mac Snack Wrap. It's about half the calories of the Big Mac sandwich and it has a little more iceberg lettuce, so I started ordering three of them once or twice a week. It was like they took all of the goodness and tastiness of a Big Mac and put it in a healthy pita wrap.

I realized that more than the Big Mac, I love the Big Mac flavor.

Then I had a vision of the near future. It was one of those clear, lucid, unmistakable, certain visions you read about. The vision was of a few years from now when McDonald's starts serving Big Mac Flavored Shakes™. They're all of the goodness of a Big Mac plus the goodness of milk.

The future is bright today.

Links:

• Paris Hilton's Carl's Jr. commercial
• If I would have bought my McDonald's stock back in 1965
• Someone who's trying to lose weight and eat a Big Mac
• McDonald's wants you to what?

Photo courtesy ParkerDeen, purchased on istockphoto.

People are zombies too, or "I thought you spelled jugs with two g's"

You know when you're a kid and you get so insanely nervous about something that you contort your hand behind your back and grab on to your other arm also behind your back?  And then your shoulder goes all crooked, even though you're trying really hard to stand up perfectly straight, and then old ladies tell you to stand up straighter and it makes you even more nervous and more lopsided?  And then the old ladies angrily bring out a ruler and then you lopsidedly run away?

Well, that's probably not you, but that was me. Picture my gangling self as a kid running away from those old ladies a lot.

In my apartment complex, everyone goes to bed at 9pm. Everyone but me, that is. It's very bizarre actually.

Late one night a few weeks ago, I arrived home at around 11pm. I noticed a tall, very slim figure in between a couple of cars. I watched this figure and noticed one shoulder protruding oddly higher than the other shoulder.  I stopped my car and watched some more. She carried two gallons of milk in her arms, and a bunch of groceries, too. Her awkward, lopsided appearance probably came from attempting to hold way too much.

I should have been chivalrous and offered to help carry the groceries, but instead, I just watched from the safety of my car.

Another of these tall, slender figures emerged, again carrying two jugs of milk and other sundries, again lurching and hunching awkwardly.  And she looked strangely similar to the first woman.

As they walked toward their apartment, all I could think about was how carrying way too much weight strangely contorted their bodies in interesting ways.

After they disappeared into the darkness, I thought, "hmm, those sisters were cute, I should have looked at their faces."

I've never seen those women before or since. I'm not sure exactly where they disappeared to in such a mystical way.  I was left with a ton of pressing questions, most notably this, "What do skinny chicks do with four gallons of milk?"

Photo courtesy of TomFullum purchased on istockphoto.

Semi-related links:

• Video on how to improve your posture
• How to survive the zombie apocalypse
• Amazing Amy, the 55-year-old contortionist
• The comic that inspired the title of this blog