in memory |

The Great American Cheeseburger.

So here I was, standing with some friends at a McDonald’s in Boulder, Colorado and we’re excited at knowing that there’s a whole menu for just about a dollar for us poor Indian students 🙂
We stalk the lady at the counter asking her about the various options we had and we settled on the Cheeseburger as it seemed the most vegetarian and superbly cheap! We then asked her about the ingredients of the cheeseburger to confirm our suspicion that we had found a veg burger in the heart of one of America’s greatest junk food joints! She told us that the Cheeseburger has cucumber, pickles, onion and cheese.
Cheese.
Cheese.
Our ears were ringing and our blood pressure shot through the roof thinking about cheese. We quickly ordered three cheeseburgers and a large coke(another dollar~fixed price for any size) and received our order, filled up our coke, picked up some ketchup and sat down.

The first thing I noticed when we sat down was that the cover of the burger said something odd. It said “100% Pure Beef”.

As I looked at the packed burger and then at the happy faces of my friends, I felt a bit of guilt but I pushed it away and waited with bated breath. They opened the packages and dug their first bites into the burger. They looked at me and I looked at them. I was perplexed at their reaction, either they were supposed to react crazily to the taste of beef or smile at me and tell me that it’s really tasty. But they looked perplexed and were probably wondering why I was not biting into my cheeseburger! I slowly asked them how the burger felt. They responded in the affirmative. I noticed that there was a tikki(cutlet) in the burger. From past experiences in South Africa, I knew that in meat-eating countries, a tikki in a burger is bad news for vegetarians.

So, I got up and went to the lady at the counter and asked her a simple question- Does this burger have beef in it?

She slowly, sweetly, responded- Yes.

Ugh.

I was holding cow’s meat in my hands. I went back to my friends who had dropped their delicious burgers due to my suspicions and told them that there was beef in the burger.

They looked at me wide-eyed. Religion was in question here! They had just bitten into beef! A few remarkable reactions later, we were still confused about what to do. Then, a kind lady sitting next to us asked us what our problem was and told us to be firm and ask for the Manager and ask for a replacement.

We went to the counter, asked for the Manager, explained what our religion states and got the burgers replaced.

My appetite was dead by now and I just ordered a coke(another dollar down the drain) and finished it in peace.

For this strange reason, it wasn’t a typical ending to a day. After all, we had just experienced what the Real American Cheeseburger is all about!

I was once described as a philosopher programmer. I think I'd like to describe myself as a lifelong student.

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    • Unfortunately, my dear “Whatever”, we Indians are very objective when it comes to food. If it says Cheeseburger, it has cheese. Sad state of affairs, isn’t it?? 🙂

      Reply to Nitin

  2. People do come out to different countries but remain illiterate and above all, write a post which portray ” See, what a fool I am”. .. and I am sure, the rest of the population isn’t like you in there…
    P.S- Even the BigMac doesnt say it’s made of beef, you gotta be intelligent..

    Reply to Whatever

    • Ah! Illiterate-no. Ignorant-Yes. Hungry-Heck yeah!!!

      And if you read between the lines, there’s a part which says clearly that the Lady was explicitly asked what the burger has and has responded very clearly all the while omitting a very important ingredient!

      And ya, a lot of Indians are very cautious about their food choices. They’re not so hungry at the end of a hard day though! That’s the position I and my friends were in then! 🙂

      Reply to Nitin

    • Dude!

      Haven’t you read the post properly??

      I did NOT eat the burger.

      The only issue I have is that I let my friends have it… I looked at the cover and the tikki inside and immediately rejected it.

      Oh and just in case you’re wondering…. Nah, I don’t rem you telling me about your incident!!! 🙂

      Reply to Nitin

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  • The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

    The Blog-Health-o-Meterâ„¢ reads Wow.
    Crunchy numbers

    A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2010. That’s about 9 full 747s.
    In 2010, there were 21 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 61 posts. There were 101 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 13mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
    The busiest day of the year was August 22nd with 58 views. The most popular post that day was The Great American Cheeseburger..
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    The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, google.co.in, harshitawriteslikethis.blogspot.com, blogger.com, and twitter.com.
    Some visitors came searching, mostly for akshardham, google sms channel, google sms channel settings, how to create google sms channel, and nitin khanna.
    Attractions in 2010
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  • What’s the most fun thing you remember about being in College?
    What’s the most fun thing you remember about being a hostler?
    What’s the most fun thing you remember about being out late at night with your friends?
    Here’s the most fun thing which has happened to me till now in the US –
    p.s. It’s a silly thing. Enjoy!
    Today, I, along with Shyam and Abhjit, who are my roomies, went to drop off a friend at the bus stand to catch a bus to Longmont. It was a long wait as we arrived at the stand at 9:30 PM while the earliest bus would not be there before 10:10 PM. So, we went in to the closest Burger King and ordered a BK Veggie burger. This time, I confirmed with the staff that the order did not contain any beef/eggs/ham/chicken/meat/fish or any other non-vegetarian food. The lady at the counter looked at me like I was from outer-space but I was more concerned in not repeating an incident as had happened with us at a McDonald’s recently. Good thing that history did not repeat itself.
    Then, we waited outside for the bus to arrive, all the while joking and having good fun. Shyam was still feeling hungry and as I write this, he’s put a cooker of rice on the stove. After our friend got on the bus and we all bid good byes, we three musketeers walked off towards our home. It’s been a long first day of studies and we were totally exhausted. In no mood to face the long walk back home, we were looking for a bus which would take us home.
    Shyam spotted it first. A beautiful, gleaming, fast bus called the Bound heading in the direction we wanted to go but across the road on the other side. Abhijit spotted it next and by the time I spotted it, they both were sprinting towards the bus. I realized first that the bus had stopped at its stop and would soon be departing as there were not many passengers on that spot.
    That is when I shouted,
    BHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    All hell broke loose and we ran like crazy kids across the road to get to the bus. As we looked on, running with full lungs, the last of the passengers got on the bus and the bus driver closed the doors of the bus. We were still a good ten feet behind and hope was slipping away faster than the air from under our breath. Then I belched again,
    ABEY BHAAAAAG!!!!! ROK USSSSSSSEEE!!!!!!!
    Shyam put in all his strength and landed right in front of the passenger doors. The driver, a kind fellow who has encountered us mostly at such times on this same route opened the doors and let us in. We all took out our wallets to show him our BuffOne Cards but he had already some sense of who we were and had marked on his ticket device that three CU Students had just got on the bus. We thanked him and sat down, joking and thanking our stars for catching this bus.
    We reached 30th & Colorado and got off, thanking the driver profusely for his services. All smiles, we got back home. Another day ends. ?

    40.006643-105.249836