For those of you not in my immediate family the photo at the left is of the snack bar menu at Mt. St. Helens in
Washington state. Why, pray tell would I show you a snack bar photo? Here's the scoop.Seven years ago, just before Jennifer and I were married, we decided to take a vacation to visit her brother Jeff in Vancouver, Washington. I was there the day before Jennifer arrived from a work road-trip, so Jeff, his step-son Ryan and I went on a sightseeing trip to the National Park at Mt. St. Helens.
Exciting park and story of the volcano eruption in 1980. However, the eruption is n
ot the point here. At some point, the three of us decided we needed food, growing boys as we were.
ot the point here. At some point, the three of us decided we needed food, growing boys as we were. Now, many of you don't know this, however considering my blog is named after a chili burger, I like to eat, and typically it is bad for me. So this particular beautiful day I decided that I would like a nice chili burger.
It wasn't on the menu, but I pride myself on the Burger King "Get it Your Way" theory of food and well, they had the Lava Dog which included chili and cheese and Hamburgers...couldn't be that hard right?
Well, this is a reasonable facsimile of the conversation that has become my brother-in-laws favorite story.
Hungry Bryan: I would like a Hamburger with chili on it.
Fearful Attendant: We don't have hamburgers with Chili on them.
Hungry Bryan: But you have Chili Dogs, right?
Fearful attendant: Yes.
Hungry Bryan: And you have hamburgers, right?
Fearful attendant: Yes.
Hungry Bryan: But you can't put the chili from a chili dog on a hamburger?
Fearful attendant: Nope.
Now I'm sure there are 1 million reasons why that attendant couldn't make a chili burger including possibly not noing how to ring it up or having the food pre made, so the chili wasn't by itself to be scooped, but actually on all the hot dogs they had, but I wasn't hearing it...I continued to ask...
Hungry Bryan: Well what would stop me from buying a chili dog and a hamburger, and spooning the chili onto the hamburger?
Fearful attendant: Well nothing I suppose.
But at this point I was too irritated to spend the extra money and well, Jeff had enough ammunition for the coming seven years. It is the perfect number, correct, seven. Well, seven years later, my father-in-law and new wife are visiting Jeff and they take an expedition to Mt. St. Helens.
The next day I get the following emal:
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 12:09 PM
To: Bryan
Subject: We Did IT!
Bryan:
We got them to change the menu.You're not going to believe this, but we went to the snack bar at Mt. St. Helens and lo and behold...They Now have a chili cheeseburger! They call it a Blast Burger. I guess that's because it makes hot lava run down your leg as your are trying to get home. I didn't have the nerve to try it for that very fear. However, I did get you a picture of the menu.. Just in case you question my integrity, I have witnesses that will testify that we really were at the Mount St. Helens Snack Bar. And yes I did make a spectacle of myself when I saw it.I guess that the word got around because I told the story so often. In any event, you should get this one framed.
Bryan:
We got them to change the menu.You're not going to believe this, but we went to the snack bar at Mt. St. Helens and lo and behold...They Now have a chili cheeseburger! They call it a Blast Burger. I guess that's because it makes hot lava run down your leg as your are trying to get home. I didn't have the nerve to try it for that very fear. However, I did get you a picture of the menu.. Just in case you question my integrity, I have witnesses that will testify that we really were at the Mount St. Helens Snack Bar. And yes I did make a spectacle of myself when I saw it.I guess that the word got around because I told the story so often. In any event, you should get this one framed.
So there it is, seven years later some retail genius at the Mt. St. Helens snack bar has done what I wanted to do, scrape the chili from the hot dog onto the Hamburger and then charge $6.95 for it...a full $2.20 more than just your average Cheeseburger...err. Truman Burger.
So now, as I join the world of blog-o-mania, there is a story that provides my blog name. The future of this blog will be all over the place. Who know's where it will land...God only knows as my brain goes in a few directions.
But as we move along, please feel free to comment, provide topics, ask questions or any of the above. Viva la chiliburger.
5 comments:
Excellent story. The same type of thing happened to me in a McDonald's at the Birmingham, AL airport. I was early for a flight, pre-911, and was walking to the McDonalds to get some breakfast when the power went out. Still hungry I continued to the counter and made the order with the clerk. I was told that the food could not be sold because the computers were down. A discussion with her that the food was getting cold just behind her yeilded the following quote. "We can not sell the food because we have no way to figure the tax since the computers are down." I had the tax already figured in my head and even suggested they do some simple math before the hotcakes got cold. This was not the right thing to say because she closed the store to the surprise of all the waiting customers. I finally found a small cart of muffins near the gate and was impressed by the older gentlemen who was doing figuring the price and tax with a pencil and paper. I swear he even licked the top of the pencil like we did in the old days.
Keep the great stories coming!!
Marc...........
Great first post, sweet pea. Most importantly, congratulations on being so obnoxious they created a menu item. :)
Marc -- that's awesome...licked the pencil. I have seen people do that as though it helps in the preparation of writing...lead poisoning be damned. 8-)
Thanks for reading.
Wow! It just goes to show that maybe, despite what Ron White thinks, that you can fix stupid. I have told that story so many times, it has almost become a legacy. In the quest of stupidity though, did you notice that adding a piece of cheese only changed the price of the burger by 25 cents, while adding a whopping 1/2 ounce of chili changed the price of the "cheeseburger" (a.k.a. Truman Burger) by a whopping $2.20? The last time I checked, the most expensive can of chili in the store was less than two bucks. It must have cost$1.89 to train some pimple faced computer freak to operate a spoon. I wish I could have stayed long enough to antagonize someone into buying one, so we could post his picture on the blog too!
Dude.....you need to play more golf!!
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