It's Enough to Make You Weep

Sunday, Hick took us to the casino. His sweaving was pretty much under control that day, and the weather was good. We parked on the south lot and walked in. Did you know that, according to my Shaming Bracelet that Genius gave me for Christmas, it's 0.2 mile from that parking lot to the women's restroom? According to Hick, I walk a half mile on these casino trips. I think it's a little more, since I make multiple loops around the casino waiting for people to get off my favorite games. And multiple trips to the restroom.

Anyhoo...for a couple days, I was not feeling good about this casino trip, because Hick said we needed to be home by noon, which meant NO BURGER for lunch! Actually, that not-looking-forward-to feeling must have been a sign not to go, because I lost a bundle of my gambling stake. But I DID have a good time, and also a tasty burger, because Hick's helper in his Freight Container Garage project, HOS (Hick's Oldest Son), was sick as a dog, and unable to help out Sunday afternoon.

Anyhoo...as usual, the heavily-accented order-taker at Burger Brothers messed up the order. I'm not really blaming him. It could have been one of the makes-it-his-way-despite-the-order cooks who sabotaged my burger this time. Mine was actually cooked to order, medium, just juicy enough, but not raw. Hick's, ordered the same, was well-done. Heh, heh! It only cost me a big loss for Even Steven to give me a tasty burger.

The problem with my burger was that I ordered it with only pickles and onions. And it came with only pickles! I was coming back from the restroom (gotta get those tenths-of-miles in) when I saw Hick sitting down with the tray of food. I bemoaned my lack of onions. "Can't they ever get anything right? I only have pickles!"

"Do you want me to go get you some onions?"

"No. That's okay. They won't give you just onions."

"Sure they will. I'll go get them."

That's my Sweet Baboo! Before he turned into...well...I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hick came back with a cardboard dish full of sliced onion and pickle. "They gave me both!"

"That's a lot."

"I like onion. I'll eat some, too."

Not that I begrudge Hick some sliced onion that should have been on my burger. I decided to eat it on the side, right out of the cardboard, rather than pile it on the burger and have it slide off. Those are really thick burgers. I just put on a couple of rings.

I eat slower than Hick. And I started to wish I HAD put all the onion on my burger. Because that pile of onion slices was dwindling at a rapid rate.

Here's a picture of the evidence:

First of all...perspective. That's a lot of ketchup, but not as much as you might think. My cardboard dish is the same size as Hick's, and as the onion and pickle dish. I always wrap my burger in a napkin (for juice-soaking, so it doesn't drip on my shirt and require dabbing with Diet Coke to remove the grease stain) and the brown waxy wrapper. I was almost finished, and good thing, too, because Hick was STILL reaching over to feast on my forgotten onion that he'd gone back to ask for. It came out just right, with some pickle slices left over.

Hick got fries this time (his are mostly gone, those are mine, some of which I gave to him when I thought I'd made him wait long enough), instead of onion rings. Then he made a comment which I found shocking.

"The onion rings haven't been as good lately. I like my onions like THIS."

"Wait. You gave me some last time. I thought they were fine. What do you mean about the onions?"

"I like 'em crispy like this. Not soggy. It's like they cooked them too much in the onion rings."

"You know that onion rings are fried, right? And you can't really have onions that are just sliced, inside a deep-fried batter?"

"Well, they don't have to make them soggy."

"That's what happens to onions when they cook. They get softer."

"Well, there's something about them that I don't like now."

Huh. I guess that means no more extra onion rings for me. Hick says next time we get a burger (who knows when, since I'll have to make scratcher profits to build my casino cash up again), he's going to ask for his pickles and onions on the side.

Surely they can't mess that up. Right?