Cheatin' and Chewin' the Fat

I cheated. I ate at Fatburger. And man, was it good.

To explain why I cheated, let me tell you about how annoying my city is. (Also, let me tell you how tired I am. Our cat Winston got out last night, and was out till 3 in the morning. As a result, I woke up every hour or so all night, worrying about his stupid cat ass. When he finally DID meow at the door, I must have slept through it, because I woke up at 4 and there he was, asleep on the bed. Marvin Gardens had let him him. Stripy bastard [the cat, not my spouse]. So I really want to be in R.E.M. right now, but no, I stayed up to tell you, dear reader, about my big cheat.)

Okay, so I live in an annoying city. It is big. And not big in the way that Manhattan is, where it is a tiny space crammed with 8 million people. No, in my case there are millions of us SPREAD OUT across mile after mile. This makes traffic charming. I live 16 miles from my work, and it takes an hour or more each way to commute.

So, if you're in a small town somewhere and you're bored and you think, "Oh, I'll bet it's fun to live in a big city," picture this scenario. Just now I had to pop into the bulk health food store to get me some organic french roast coffee and some nutritional yeast. Okay, yes, I live in a city where those are staple items. So that's nice. But it was 8:15 p.m. on a Wednesday. And the PARKING LOT WAS COMPLETELY FULL. It wasn't just full, it was crammed with people parked every which way, illegally. So then, I had to pull out of the parking lot, wait forever to turn left just to get onto the street, and drive around trying to find parking. Which of course there was none. I finally found parking in the world's darkest, scariest street and ran in heels to get my ding-dang coffee and yeast. So, an errand that would take five minutes in a normal place (assuming a normal place has nutritional yeast in bulk) took me 30 minutes and shin splints. Then I had to drive home. In traffic.

So, anyway, there I was Monday night after work on the other side of town from where I live. (Basically, there is the affordable side of town -- if you can consider $1,600 a month rent affordable -- and the side of town everybody works on. Which again makes traffic charming.) I hadn't eaten in five hours, and I wasn't going to get home for at least three more hours. This was bad. I had tried to prepare for this: I asked Marvin Gardens, who met me after work, to bring me food from home. Somehow he took this to mean Reese's Pieces. I was thinking more along the lines of a turkey sandwich.

I mean, I was that kind of hungry where Marvin Gardens was looking like a delicious duck dinner. Remember when Daffy Duck was shipwrecked with someone (Elmer Fudd? Bugs? Why can't I recall?) and suddenly through the eyes of Elmer (or whoever) Daffy was a roasted duck dinner? That's where I was on the hunger scale.

So I have to tell you, I took that dang $20 that keeps hanging on in my wallet and I went to Fatburger. Oh, but Fatburger is good. I had a Baby Fatburger (a really small version of the huge hamburger) and a vanilla shake. I think I spent $6 or so.

Did I feel guilty? No. I was as happy as a clam. A well-fed clam.