YAKIMA, Wash. — I’d have actually told you, had you asked, that I don’t really eat fast food.
I’d have actually been lying.
To you, yes, but mostly to myself. See, I really believed that I didn’t eat much fast food. But I stopped to consider it recently, and the numbers don’t lie: Between hungover Sunday morning McMuffins and no-time-to-cook lunch breaks filled along with Beefy Crunch Burritos, I was hitting the drive-thru a couple of times a week at least.
When I realized my self-image as a non-fast-food-eating guy was not supported by the actual facts, I decided to quit. My wife and I are taking the summer off from fast food. It’s a hard-line rule, along with no room for exceptions. It’s only been about a couple of weeks so far, and I already feel better.
But, in the interest of naming my demons and confronting them head-on, I hereby offer my official list of Best Fast Food Items. Writing this is the closest I’ll get to any of them for the next few months, but I urge all of you to enjoy them on behalf of those of us who can’t.
• The Carl’s Jr. Thickburger El Diablo. It’s a burger topped along with bacon, pepper-jack cheese, fiery habanero sauce, sliced jalapenos, jalapeno poppers, molten lava from the earth’s core, the anguish of unrealized dreams and man’s inhumanity to man. It comes on a fresh-baked bun.
• The Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito. It’s the normal Taco Bell extruded ground meat-substance plus nacho cheese sauce, reduced-fat (for some reason) sour cream and Flamin’ Hot Fritos. That’s right. They mix the Fritos right in along with that other stuff. It’s “food” as imagined by a 5-year-old, and it’s only a dollar. I usually buy three, happily eat two and then sadly eat the third.
• KFC Extra Crispy. KFC is garbage chicken, and I hate it. But every once in a while, I need it more than I need air. It comes in a bucket because ordering food in a bucket is a totally normal thing that healthy humans should do.
• Burger King Chicken Fries.
“Hey, Steve.”
“Yeah, Doug?”
“You know what we should sell here at Burger King?”
“What’s that Doug?”
“Chicken. … But in the shape of fries.”
“Doug.”
“Yes, Steve?”
“That’s the most effective idea I’ve ever heard.”
• McDonald’s McGriddles. More than anything else on this list, the McGriddles is a no-kidding brilliant invention. It’s a sausage-patty sandwich (or bacon, egg and cheese if you’re insane) along with syrup-infused pancakes for bread.
One time I bit into one and the whole room went dark for a split second. When the lights came back on, I was outside, running through a pristine meadow as the most beautiful music I’d ever heard swirled around me, and all of the creatures of the forest sang together in perfect harmony. I knew, in that instant, despite all the world’s strife, despite war and famine and the uncaring nature of this cold, cruel universe, that good did exist and chance was not merely an opiate for fools but a real and true thing.
Also, you can get a McGriddles in a combo meal that comes along with a hand-held hashbrown and your choice of coffee or soda.
— The Indoorsman
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