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.