Special Orders

Having it your way. It's an American ideal. This was one of the reasons I was, for a time, shamed into considering a switch in my burger allegiance from McDonald's to Burger King. After all, for a time in my youth my family referred to me as "The Burger King." This had more to do with the fact that I would cry if I was subjected to anything but a hamburger and fries when my parents went out for dinner and bought us boys fast food than it mattered where that hamburger came from. It might also have had something to do with the incident that occurred in Disneyland, the one in which I fell asleep with my head on that nice warm bun after a long day in the Magic Kingdom. I grew up with the expectation that burgers came from the Golden Arches, but I was tolerant of other chains that might try to force my hand as long as that hand ended up with a cheeseburger in it.
Years pass. My palate changes. Well, not discernibly for those outside, but it changes. I no longer require a Quarter Pounder with Cheese for my routine. I was introduced to the wonders of the "flame broiled" technique favored by the Burger King franchises. I understood that in the Kingdom of Burgers, there can still be many heads of state. That's why I wasn't shaken to the core when my wife announced that, now we were done collecting Happy Meal toys, we could be done with McDonald's. It was a political decision that stretched beyond the whole ketchup and mustard versus special sauce issues that tended to cloud my own judgement. That's why when Burger King announced that they were going to be selling a "Proud Whopper" to commemorate San Francisco's annual Gay Pride celebration, it came as a revelation, not necessarily a revolution.
Shortly after that, however, came the news that the corporate offices of the King had made another decree: They would swallow up the Canadian doughnut chain, Tim Horton's, in order to become a non-U.S. corporation. This will allow them to dodge the "unfair" tax burden they experienced when they were based in the lower forty-eight. Now there are talks of boycotting the King. What could be more American? If you answered, "The God-fearing folks at In'n'Out," feel free to pull forward to the next window. Who would have thought that eating hamburgers required a conscience?