A Very Special Edition of "Dinner Last Night"

Regular readers of this nonsense know that my meal the previous night is always mentioned at the end of every daily entry. Some of you even make comments from time to time.

"How often do you eat at the Cheesecake Factory."

"Crap, you really like sausage and peppers."

"What the fuck is cervelat?"

Well, hang on to those questions for now, folks. Because last night's repast gets a blog post all to its own.

Backtracking to earlier in the day, I had a very healthy Chinese chicken salad at lunch. So, dinner wasn't destined to be huge. I was on my own and noticed in the kitchen coupon basket a voucher that had gone unused. Earlier in the season, the Dodgers held a promotion for Jack In The Box. You got to the game, they win by three runs, and you get three free mini sirloin burgers. That's the franchise's new big seller. A couple of quick sirloin sliders. I took the coupon, figuring I would never use it.

Until last night, when I figured why not.

Why not? Hours later, I have over two dozen reasons.

Mind you, it is a rare day when I set foot in a fast food place. I don't remember the last time I went into a McDonald's. I think I had a Burger King Whopper Junior at some point in the past decade. But, I am definitely not a "drive-up, grab a tray, and clog your artery" kind of guy.

There's a Jack In The Box right down the road, so, at least, the ravaging of my heart would be convenient. As I walked into the place, I felt that I was in a foreign land. What is this strange phenomenon? A fast food restaurant? Hmmmm.

The first thing I saw was about a dozen obese slobs scattered around the joint. They were all eating French Fries in unison as if choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Behind the counter, there wasn't a single server with a high school diploma. One chick, whose hair net was falling off, was in charge of French Fry salting. She took the shaker and didn't stop for about fifteen seconds. Good evening, Lot's Wife. The other customers being rewarded with full trays of cholesterol picked up their meals one-by-one and waddled off to die. Everything was supersized, including the puddle of water seeping out from under the men's room door.

I handed in my coupon for the three mini sirloin burgers. The clerk took about ten minutes to attempt reading it. Did I want fries? No. Did I want onion rings? No. Did I want an apple pie? No. Did I want the name of a good cardiologist? Probably.

I felt totally out-of-place picking up my tray of so little food. In a little box, I found three burgers from Munchkinland. The meat on each was probably no bigger than the diameter of two quarters. But I must confess they were tasty. Indeed, they hit the spot.

For about ten minutes.

The pain started in the car when I was not two blocks away. Not the signal of a heart attack, because my cholesterol is okay and I have virtually no plaque anywhere except perhaps on my back molars. The distress was indescribable. Part indigestion, part acid reflux, and part anvil to the chest. By the time I got home, it was gone.

I thought about where I had gone and what I had done and who I had seen. And engraved all the images in my mind.

Because I will never ever go there and do that and see them again.

Dinner last night: See above, Stupid.