Double Quarter Pounder, Plain

Everyone has that one food that they crave in a ganja fog. The desire to run to McDonald's at 2 AM for a Double Quarter Pounder with cheese—plain—to silence your aching stomach and screaming brain is too much. It’s cold, really fucking cold. You pile on socks under the warm fuzzy moccasins mom got you for Hanukkah and the sweatshirt you basically never take off because it’s too cozy and covers your knuckles perfectly. Last to go on are the warm flannel pajama pants: you know, the ones with the pastel penguins skiing down your legs? Yeah, those. Tiptoeing through the house to the door where the keys hang is the easy part. You grab your ancient car keys, and turn the door knob. It squeaks just a bit and the fear of waking up your mom with barking dogs send a shiver throughout your slightly sweating body. You shimmy out the door, closing it ever so gently, then breathe a huge sigh of relief.

After the struggle of button clicking to open doors and buckling seatbelts, you look into the living room window where your cat sits, bright yellow eyes in black as night fur stare at you, a judgmental demon. “I know, a culinary school graduate going to get McDonald's at 2 AM. I should be ashamed,” you say to yourself, but also slightly to the animal, as though he cares or can hear you. Your 1995 hunter green Subaru Legacy station wagon roars to life. You throw it into drive and peel out of the driveway. It’s a five minute drive to the 24/7 McDonald's on Deming Street; turn right onto Robert, left onto Graham, right onto Ayres, left onto Deming, left into the parking lot and around the building to your ordering window. You know the entire drive by heart. You’re sitting under the golden arches before you can even blink.

You scan the almost neon menu to see if they've changed the numbers on the board. Nope, still a number four. Double quarter pounder with cheese, the world’s most perfect cheeseburger. It’s cheap, three or so dollars for just the burger, an extra dollar fifty for a large box of fries and a sweet tea. You order just the burger, PLAIN, just meat, cheese, and bread. The five dollars in your pocket only allows you just that.

“Second window drive up,” says the magical box.

You drive to the second window and sit, waiting in anticipation. Getting the burger plain is really the only way to eat a Double Quarter Pounder. Unadulterated, mechanically separated beef smushed into a perfectly seasoned patty that’s been griddled to crispy perfection. The processed cheese is perfectly melty to the point where the sesame seed buns slip and slide over the cheese like a young child on ice skates. You see the raccoon-eyelinered teen come to the window. “$4.57,” she mumbles out the window. You hand her your crumpled five and wait for her to drop the remaining change into your hand. It goes directly into your cup holder. You turn around to find a greasy, droopy bag hanging from scary, long, black and pink lacquered finger nails. You think, “how does she eat with those things? Skewer a nugget onto each one?”

The smell is intoxicating. Everything that comes out of that red and yellow building is perfumed with french fry aroma. You know, that smell that is immediately identifiable, but can never be described as anything other than french fries. It drives you nuts. You salivate and dream about getting home, and chowing down on that burger. Forget the plate or napkin.

In an instant you're back home in the driveway, racing to the door. You open it just enough to slip through without it squeaking. Before taking off your layers upon layers of clothing, the paper is open and the burger is exposed. Still steaming. The golden cheese cascades onto the wrapper, a little tear of grease dotting the patty. Sesame seeds spill onto the floor as you pick up the sandwich. No lettuce, tomato, or pickles to ruin the purely magical flavor of grease, salt and burger. Your first bite is euphoric. Around and around you go, biting off the edges first, your favorite part to be saved for last. The edges aren’t perfection. The cheese doesn’t completely cover the edges of the patty, but as you get to the middle, cheese covers everything in a blanket of salty, fatty goodness. The sesame seed bun, probably the rejected, imperfect Big Mac buns, are the most wonderful type of bland. Toasted just slightly with some sort of butter-esque substance swiped onto the inside, and placed under and on top of the beautiful layers (two to be exact) of griddled patties and melted American cheese. America’s favorite cheese for America’s favorite restaurant. The burger gives you comfort, and clarity. Your brain stops thinking about the assignment that’s due in macroeconomics, and how grotesquely dirty your room is. Focused on the burger and only the burger, there is roughly seven minutes of silence—beautiful, craveable silence.

The last bite remains, the perfect bit. The exact middle, where the cheese is the thickest and the patties are seasoned the most. It’s perfect harmony, no veggies to mess it up. You chew, ever so carefully, savoring the last morsel. And before you know it, it’s gone. How did you finish it already? Where did it go? Is it really gone? Maybe you should have gotten two?