Why Not Patronize Evanston, IL’s 24-Hour Burger King at Odd Hours
(I didn’t figure out till tonight that he’s not saying “we’re all dragon masters here”… I like my version better.)
There are these four teenagers ahead of me. One weird-lookin’ girl, one genuinely cute girl, and two of the sketchiest-looking young men I have encountered in my all-too-short life. These boys are dressed like they’re attempting to join some second-rate gang in Los Angeles, they’re pawing the girls like they’re patting them down at the airport, their command of the English language is worse than mine of regional-dialect Swahili and they’ve got ratty mustaches-in-training that, like Schrodinger’s cat, are sort of there and not there at the same time.
The girls order their food from some fellow with a foreign name. I think it was Texu, except I’m pretty sure the u was in the middle somewhere, and it had an umlaut. He didn’t look foreign at all. As Illinois as they come. He had braces and looked way too old for them. Oh, Texu, that you should have these customers to deal with. The girls fluctuated between ordering and engaging in side conversation with their male friends, repeatedly asking them if they wanted anything despite the boys repeatedly saying they were going to eat elsewhere, perhaps in Schaumberg (I am not making this up).
When the time comes for a decision between “to stay or to go”, they change their answer more times than a poor man’s Jay Leno doing a John Kerry imitation. At this time one of the sketchy guys decides to order some foodstuff for himself.
The Herculean task of ordering food complete, it is time to pay. Cute girl produces a $100 bill. And this bothers me for some reason. What is this girl doing wandering around with a Ben Franklin in her pocket like it’s a tissue? How does one come by one of those things without specifically seeking it out from the bank, anyway?
Burger King (alas, poor Texu!) does not take bills this large, it appears, and thus the girls are unable to pay for their $15.31 feast, as the $100 bill seems to be their sole currency for the evening. Weird-looking girl begins digging through her pockets. She finds nine one-dollar bills. Texu is getting nervous. I want to walk over their and give him a hug. All involved start weighing their options, perhaps trying to remove an item or two from the bill of fare to bring things within the realm of possibility.
One of the sketchy guys asks me if I can break a hundred. As it happens, I know off the top of my head I can, but I’m not getting involved with this unless things get really serious. Especially since I have no immediate use for such a non-liquid piece of currency; if it’s not good enough for Texu, it’s not good enough for me.
Though I do sort of want to help Texu out. He looks so nervous. I suspect when he gets home tonight he’s going to post this in his Livejournal, along with some subpar poetry.
I notice a sign on the wall. It would appear that Evanston has a curfew for people age 17 and younger. I am beginning to see why.
One of the girls finds, buried below her pack of Newport cigarettes, another dollar bill.
Texu is beginning to sweat.
I am getting annoyed, as are the customers behind me.
Finally, one of the boys, finally becoming aware of the situation around him as opposed to whatever equation of quantum physics he was solving in his head, produces a ten-dollar bill. He does not bother to explain why this took him entire minutes to figure out, but so grateful are his companions for his assistance that they do not question. Dinner is saved.
Texu asks if they want ketchup. Cute girl says no.
The order is processed. I go up to Texu and request my double cheeseburger and large fries. I have my money on the table by the time he is ready to receive it. I have extra time to do this because the cute girl butts in on my ordering to belatedly apologize to Texu for causing such pain and suffering on his watch. Then weird-looking girl goes over and plays with the cardboard crowns.
The young peoples’ hard-won bounty is assembled on a tray and handed to them. They have to be told twice that their food is there, as they are obliviously wrapped up in some side conversation and thus incapable of noticing a tray being set down in front of them.
My order comes without delay, under the watchful stewardship of Texu and his cook that evening, Mario.
Cute girl re-emerges from her pit of obliviousness and asks for ketchup.
And thus did I leave the Kingdom of Burger, back to my beloved Shepard, a land where we live simply, without chaos. Where we do not send our children to defend our fortress against the young and stupid and annoying. Where there is a hope for the future. For while Burger King may be closer to us than basically any other dorm on campus, we need not take the easy way out. For a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or, as the great man said, what’s a heaven for?
I sat in my room. I picked off my pickles and ate my cheeseburger. I munched my fries. I thought of the night’s misadventures. And I knew that my life had been changed in a profound way.
Oh, Taco Bell. Why did I forsake thee?
