clown with cheese

So here we are, to talk of a red-letter day that occurred two decades ago during my adventures at Burger King.

But before I get to that, I need to address yet another example of the New York Times following in my footsteps. It happened this past spring, after I tried to be all funny and satirical about proms in “omp!” and created (or so I thought) the concept of the Adult Prom... and then lo and behold, exactly 15 days later the Times ran a feature story on actual Adult Proms being held in the Midwest. And it happened yet again on July 31, not even a month after I admitted to still using paper calendars in “old tymes not forgotten,” when I came across a feature about some people refusing to ride the wave of digital planners and calendar software. 

Well, let’s see the Grey Lady do a story about fast-food clown training. 

ka-ching with cheese

So here we are, back after a longer-than-planned hiatus, to get back to that magical Burger King summer of 1991. 

The day I was bumped up to the cash register was monumental, but at the time, I didn’t think it was such a big deal. After all, I had an concurrent evening job at Kerr Drugs and had already run registers for several weeks. Of course, those were ancient registers with no bar code scanner or credit card pad... every price and product code had to be entered by hand, and every credit card transaction required the use of the old-fashioned “chunk-chunk” slider device that imprinted the card number onto carbon receipts. But I’d mastered them, and surely the Burger King registers would be a breeze by comparison. Hell, we didn’t even accept credit cards at the BK. That alone had to make for smooth sailing.

But consider, if you will, the frustrated tinkerings of a bright young engineer charged with designing a fast-food cash register. He’s got to make tiny little buttons for each menu item. He’s got to include buttons that say small, medium, and large. Buttons that are pink and blue. He has a master’s degree. He is not happy.

intermission

So here we are, and I am taking a small breather from telling the tales of my Burger King adventures 20 years ago.

I probably have four more BK posts left in me. For those who are fatigued by these stories, I apologize. But sometimes I feel that one of the unspoken missions of my blog is to spread the wisdom I have accrued through unlikely means, and that was certainly a summer filled with lessons, not all of which were about grilled meat. Wait until I tell you about clown school. Doesn’t that sound promising?

selective memory with cheese

So here we are, in the continuing saga of my Burger King Summer of ’91, one score ago.

There are things that I remember vividly about those ten weeks. One such thing was the day that I swear I made Burger King history by making a single order of six ham and cheese sandwiches. I don’t think anyone had done it before, and I’m sure it's not been done since.

change with cheese

So here we are, in another chapter of the 20th anniversary of my Great Burger King Adventure of 1991.

I don’t know why my ten summer weeks at Burger King happened to fall during a period of great change, but they did. Being smack in the middle of it provided me with yet another valuable life lesson:

You do not want to be on the front lines of change. People may say they want change, but they mostly don’t.

It was an odd chapter in Burger King history, when the Whopper Jr. was temporarily renamed Hamburger (or Cheeseburger) Deluxe, and the old-school Whaler fish sandwich was now the more-PC Ocean Catch. This proved to be impossible for long-time customers to comprehend, let alone accept. It’s not like there was an ad campaign that explained the change, or even massive signage to clarify the situation... it just happened. And I’d see customers come to the register and crane their necks up at the menu board, brows furrowed, eyes darting and searching... and then, in small fearful voices, they would ask:

first day with cheese

So here we are.

Twenty years ago, I was lucky when that call came through. It was just one summer earlier, during the recession of 1990, when I’d had no luck at all even getting an application at the fast-food joints of Jacksonville, NC. But in the summer of 1991, The King called, beckoning me to his flame-kissed burger palace.

And now I had not one, but two part-time jobs that would help add desperately needed kopeks to my college coffer. I’d work the registers at the mall drugstore in the evening, and during the day, I’d do everything there was to do at Burger King. It would prove to be a pivotal, horrible, wearying, lonely, amazing summer where I learned less about burgers and more about human nature than I could have dreamed.

old tymes not forgotten

So here we are

I’m not a Luddite. I just want to make that clear. I love my way-too-many gadgets that start with “i.”

But I still keep an old-school weekly/monthly planner. Complete with a no-longer-manufactured Pilot V-Ball pen jammed in the spiral binding for handy storage. 

Yes, I know what year it is. Yes, I have iCal on my laptop and phone. Before that, I had a Palm Pilot. Before that, it was Outlook. But all attempts to use them day-to-day were absolute disasters. Maybe it’s because I’m a freelancer, maybe it’s because I don’t have a big office network, or maybe it’s because I tend to remember things better when I physically write them down. In any case, I’ve been using paper planners since college; and before that, those little checkbook-sized, grandma-friendly, 2-year wallet calendars (which were surprisingly handy and effective, and I always knew what birthstone was in play at any given time). 

christmas in july

So here we are.

Let’s see... what to write about today... Golly. I got nothing. Feeling lazy and disjointed. It’s quiet outside. Quiet and hot. 

The mass Independence Day Weekend exodus from the city has begun, and the residential, non-touristy neighborhoods of New York City are that special kind of dead that I so enjoy. You don’t have to wait for the “walk” sign because there’s hardly any traffic barreling at you. That brunch place with the long Sunday lines? This weekend, you can walk right in. It’s a sweet little reward for staying in the sweltering city while everyone else is having a holiday among water and sand, trees and grass. 

Sometimes I wonder why so many New Yorkers leave the city for the country in the summertime, especially when equal or greater numbers of tourists flock here and leave their quiet front porches behind in favor of the concrete hustle. Sure, it’s hot here, but it’s hot everywhere.