In which I’m talking about sandwiches again and also fuck Burger King

On December 22, 2013December 21, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy12 Comments

Hands-free-Whopper-holder-introduced-by-Burger-King I don’t eat at Burger King very often– maybe once every three or four months, and generally only when I either have no other options or am sick to death of all other available food options. Given that the side of town I live on has a multitude of places to eat, this just doesn’t happen very often. I don’t dislike their food, mind you, but over the last few years the company has sort of taken on this air like they’re padding around in circles and looking for a place to die– the menu has always changed massively every time I go there, they’ve renamed things, added a bunch of food that I don’t recognize, and always, always changed their fries from the last time I was in there.

Luckily, one of the very few things that they haven’t fucked with is the chicken sandwich, or, as they’re calling it now, the Original Chicken Sandwich, perhaps to drive home the whole hey, look, this is actually the same as the last time you came in here back in 2005 thing. I had a craving tonight, and since I was at OtherJob all day I knew I was on my own for dinner, so I stopped at Burger King on the way home.

(Sidenote: Subway’s Big Hot Pastrami Melt, on flatbread, with provolone cheese, pickles, and dijon. Delicious. This is my new shit. I love pastrami but unfortunately I live in Indiana and it’s much more difficult than you might imagine to get ahold of– even the couple of delis near my house rarely have it available, so Subway introducing a pastrami sandwich was seriously the good news of the week. Unfortunately, the Subway on my side of town is a big pain in the ass, or I’d have just had two of these today, one on the way to work and one on the way home.)

Anyway. Back to Burger King. (I swear I don’t usually have fast food twice in a day, but Saturdays are annoying for eating right.) I pulled into the drive thru and rolled down my window. The aggravation starts immediately, because Burger King is now using some sort of canned introductory message in the drive thru now; some sort of hypercorporatebullshit robotic cheery “HI HOW MAY I MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER BY SERVING YOU WITH MY SERVING AND YOUR FOOD AND MY SERVICE” thing.

I do not require service from anyone. I want you to make me some food and I want to pay you for it. You are literally serving it to me in the sense that you are handing it to me, but that does not make you my servant. You are not going to serve me today. You’re gonna sell me some damn food. I don’t know why that word bugs me so much but it does. Also, it would be nice if it was a person talking to me and not a damn robot. Can we not trust our employees to say “Hi, welcome to Burger King, can I take your order?” anymore?

So there’s that, but it’s a common annoyance so I ignore it. I request my chicken sandwich and then all hell breaks loose.

“May we have your first name for the receipt, please?”

I was literally shocked into silence for a second. I seriously couldn’t process what the hell I’d just been asked. You want my what? Why the fuck– what–

WHAT?

I lie. Reflexively, damn near instantly. Make up the first first name that comes into my head; it’s not my damn name. Why the fuck do you want my fucking name? For the RECEIPT? Why the fuck does the receipt need my goddamn what-the-fuck name? This isn’t fucking Starbucks, you assholes, I’m in a goddamn drive thru.

I seriously wish I had just refused; I regularly refuse to give my ZIP code or phone number during transactions– it just took me by surprise too much and threw me off my game. If the drive-thru in question hadn’t been one of the type where there’s no escape once you’re in it I seriously might have left.

And then they’d printed my goddamn name on the receipt, which is a piece of paper I’m never looking at again. Except it wasn’t my name. I paid with cash, by the way, entirely on purpose because fuck if I’m giving you assholes any more information about me at all at this point. I don’t know why this bugs me so damn much but I’ll be damned if I’m handing over any personal information about me of any kind to buy a fucking three dollar sandwich in a drive thru. In fact, I won’t be handing them three dollars anymore, either; it ain’t like I like Burger King enough to overlook the fact that they’re deliberately freaking me the fuck out in the drive thru now.

Fuck.

The more you know: Essential addendum

On September 17, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews1 Comment

Maybe an hour after eating the Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich, you start sweating Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich Sweat out of the pores of your nose, which is not a terribly pleasant experience. Note that the Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich is not actually terribly oily (I’m blaming the gouda, for no damn good reason) so the Brisket Sweats I’ve been experiencing for the last couple of hours are both confusing and somewhat inexplicable.

Perhaps this is one of those rare “wash your face after eating” types of sandwiches.

Oh: fingers, also. My fingers smell like brisket. I swear I’m generally clean. It’s the sandwich.

Still tasty, though.

The more you know

On September 17, 2013September 17, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Reviews, Teaching1 Comment

memphis-bbq-beautiful-ladies-closer

First, a brief public service announcement: the Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich is… how do you say it? “Mad tasty, yo?” Is that right? I think that’s how the kids talk nowadays. What I mean to say is that I enjoyed eating it.

People who respond to this by suggesting that I should buy a smoker and make my own brisket and stop eating brisket from Arby’s are going to be alternately mocked, ignored, or set on fire, depending on my mood, just so you know. 🙂

(The young ladies in the picture to the right are not eating an Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich; that appears to be some sort of cheeseburger. Hey, it’s what Google gave me. Blame Google. Not me.)

Public service announcement ends.

Apparently we have hit the point where all of the students who understand that I break up fights immediately and prejudicially have left the building, because I’ve broken up three in the gym so far this year, after going an entire school year without having to do it once. The one yesterday was particularly bad since the rest of the seventh and eighth grade girls behaved as if they were at a goddamned WWE match, causing me to hold every last one of their asses in the gym after dismissing everyone else and read them the riot act, including the phrase “I am sick of your shit.” While it might surprise you given my vocabulary in other situations, I don’t often swear (by which I mean, I almost never swear) in front of my kids, and when I do do it, it’s fully calculated and for effect one hundred percent of the time. “I am sick of this,” they wouldn’t have heard. I am sick of your shit made it into every teenage skull in the room. I dispelled another situation this morning before it escalated to the level of a fight, and I think I was able to do that mostly because of the tongue-lashing from yesterday.

Hopefully, tomorrow will slide by with little to no drama.

He said.

(An aside: I’ve been listening to Gnarls Barkley while writing this– I’m not a huge fan and don’t listen to the CD often, but it popped into my head the other day so it’s still up on iTunes. One of their songs begins with someone chanting “wake up wake up,” which reminded me that I really like Bone Thugz-n-Harmony, and now I’m listening to 1st of tha Month. Which kind of entertains me. Also: Your rent’s due, motherfucker.)

(A second aside: One of the tags on this post was suggested by WordPress, and I’m predicting this post gets twice as many views as normal because of it. See if you can guess which one!)

I think that’s about it so I’m going to close with a picture of Seth Greene and his wife, because HOW THE HELL IS THAT HIS WIFE.