NO TUNA. CHEESEBURGER?
I am not a foodie; not even close. But living on the road as I do, I no longer have a kitchen of my own, so I eat out a lot. And I have noticed some new trends in restaurants that I do not like very much. I say these trends are new, but I have no idea really if they’re new or not…as I said I’m not a foodie.
I worked retail for over three decades so I am pretty lenient with food workers. I don’t take my annoyance out on them, but they may wonder why I am standing there shaking my head in silence in response to a question they’ve just asked.
Like everyone, I have my favorite go-to foods. But I am not very adventurous. I am not likely to waste my meager food budget on seeing if I like something, so I stay pretty close to my dozen or so favorites.
One of those favorites is the Great American Hamburger. This is not a risky statement; many if not most Americans love hamburgers, and they love to eat them in many combinations: with ketchup, without onions, etc. But you can’t simply order a hamburger anymore. Go ahead, try. Nowadays, if you try to order a hamburger the employee immediately asks if you want cheese on your burger. This is where those silent headshaking attacks hit me. I gain my composure and stare hard at the employee, a little bothered by the interruption, while trying to figure out why they just asked me if I wanted a cheeseburger after clearly ordering a hamburger. Sometimes in my least generous moments, I point out that "cheeseburger" is just below "hamburger" on their menu board, and that if I had wanted a cheeseburger, it was right there as an option…an option I hadn’t chosen.
Do restaurants make that much money each year adding cheese to a burger? I guess it adds up, but geez.
The other food crime I have noticed lately is how restaurants apply the condiments to your burger. In the Good Ole Days, the mustard, mayo, or ketchup was applied directly to the bun, as God intended. I can’t tell you how many hamburgers I have gotten lately with the mustard lightly squirted onto the patty. Just a tiny pile of mustard, mind you, not spread onto the bun, so that, unless you spread it yourself, you only taste mustard on one bite. And, while I’m at it, why do they barely give you any condiment? You’d think with all that extra cheese they’re selling, they could afford to give a little more.
-Quillbilly Tim
