I thought I was all raged out after I started this thread on Friday night. Apparently, I was wrong. My rage has festered inside of me. It started as a small ball of rage – more of a small ball of annoyance, really – but it grew, like one of those bugs that got inside that guy on that one Star Trek episode, and it grew and made him do things and everyone thought he was evil but there was just a bug inside of him? It’s just like that.
To White Castle.
Oh, you knew this was coming; yes, you did. You’ve suckered me into those doors one time too many. At first it was just one of those combo meals for lunch. Combo #1, four hamburgers, fries, and a Coke. Innocuous enough, right? WRONG. It’s the first step in your master plan. From there, it was a short step to trying the chicken with cheese, fish with cheese, and turkey with cheese sandwiches. You got me hooked on getting two chicken with cheeses on the way to work – after all, you’re trying to be convenient, what with your “open 24 hours” deal.
It got worse, as you very well know. It was yet another short step to getting the sack of ten, and taking it home for supper plus leftovers. And then my roommate succumbed, and would convince me to go with him while we each got a sack of ten. I’d suffer for it, but it’d be worth it. It was a trial. It was a conquest.
Even when you began selling the 20-pack, with four fries, for a measly $10, I still didn’t waver. You had applied the blinders of steam-grilled hamburgers to my eyes. I thought it was a bargain.
However, you went too far. Much like Icarus and Daedalus, your ambition stretched beyond the bounds of sanity. You couldn’t be satisfied with the sack of ten, or the 20-pack. You had to begin selling THE CASE OF THIRTY.
Thirty hamburgers. Oh, no, not sold in three sacks, like you’d expect, but given to the customer in a BOX. Six burgers wide, five burgers deep, one layer, with the White Castle logo on the top. And my roommate, poor, poor Tyler, had no self control. He demanded that we invest in this atrocity. Invest is the only appropriate word – this represented the gross national product of several Third World countries. What could I do? He owed me ten bucks, and said that he’d pay for the whole thing. Never being one to pass up a free meal, I acquiesced. However, I was apprehensive - we were about to embark on a journey of epic proportions. Some people scale Mt Everest. Some people ski across Antarctica. When asked why, they reply, “Because it was there.” Why did we endeavour to eat thirty hamburgers? Because they were there.
T minus 10 burgers. We have each had five. I feel a bit queasy. No more than normal, though; this is par for the course.
T minus 16 burgers. Much like a champion marathon runner, I hit the wall. I could go no further. However, much like a champion marathon runner, I got my second wind, and continued the feeding.
T minus 20 burgers. Tyler and I have finished two thirds of the case. He’s lying on his side on the floor moaning incoherently; I’m trying to focus my eyes on the table and keep my balance. We refuse to admit defeat. Tyler crawls back into his chair. I grab a hold of the table until the room stops spinning.
T minus 26 burgers. Only four remain. I wonder if we can finish. Tyler asks if our objective is to kill ourselves. I reply that this is a test of the toxic threshold, and to continue eating. This is for the good of science.
T minus 28 burgers. One lone burger sits in front of each of us. Tyler can’t feel the left side of his body. My stomach and intestines have declared open war against me, and to hell with the Geneva Conventions – they’re using gas. I tilt to the side and relieve some of the pent-up pressure. Tyler asks if he has to swallow his burger, or if it counts if he just gets it into his mouth.
T minus 30 burgers. The journey is over. Tyler begins to cry. Through the whimpers, I can make out the words, “It hurts, it hurts, oh, god, it hurts.” I decide that I’ll just sit on the floor for a minute. After all, Laura is about to arrive, and then it’s off to bed.
Fifteen minutes pass. Tyler hasn’t moved from his fetal position on the floor. I have maintained consciousness, focusing my mind on the fact that soon I will be snuggling in bed with my girlfriend.
Laura arrives. She looks at Tyler, comatose. She sees me, slumped against the wall. She sees the carnage on the dining room table.
“I’m going to bed. You’re sleeping on the couch tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”
White Castle, you go to hell.
