As long as it works

Today the Everdream Christmas party was held at Sir Edmund Hailey’s. A place almost impossible to find unless you are drunk and being dragged there by your two roommates who insist we can just walk home, 2 blocks away, what’s the shame in another beer. Has that happened to you? Yeah, me either. ahem.

Connor stayed with Robyn so I was child free for an entire three hours.

Sir Edmund’s serves a mean cheeseburger. So that’s what I ordered. But I can’t enjoy a 2 inch thick burger. I just can’t. I take off the lid to my bun and flay my burger horizontally, removing the bottom portion and laying it on my plate because the bottom portion has the least amount of cheese. And then I see it. The exterior cavity once removed allows me to see portions of medium rare meat lacing the edges of my well done burger. This will not do. I try to covertly remove the raw edge pieces with my knife, but this does not work for me.

Ok before you start gasping at my lack of table manners, I would like to say in my own defense that, yes I know better, but damnit it’s been 6 months since I sat down in a restaurant to eat a cheeseburger and I had been fantasizing about this one for an entire week.

I begin tearing it away with my fingers. Pulling them away and wiping them off with my napkin just before Gordon, fellow Everdreamer and Salesperson comes over to say goodbye. My burger is at this point mangled- laying open and vulnerable, awaiting the remainder of its nuclear stress testing.

I could see Gordon eyeing my burger as he was talking. I could see his mind working… it was saying to him, “This lady is scaring me”.

I explain to him the purpose of the burger surgery. He probably thinks this is a bit strange as I am not able to explain that I am desperately trying to create a cheeseburger of fantasy because in another two hours I will be returned to my own world. A world where cold broccoli casserole from the fridge is a well balanced breakfast at 2pm in the afternoon. A world where I have to stand drinking coffee or abandon it in the kitchen to keep it from little hands. A world where restaurant cheeseburgers, sadly, do not live.

He teases me briefly and goes on about his way, leaving me to reassemble my burger and enjoy, while everyone else at the table watches me with humorous, dismay.

That’s right. I’m a problem solver. That cheeseburger was a problem and I was going to fix it. It doesn’t matter what the workaround is… as long as it works.