Whopper
It was a dark and stormy night.
As I made my way out of the rain and into the warmth and comfort of the College Park Burger King, I contemplated turning back. It would be so easy to just hop on a bus and speed far away. But I couldn’t surrender; there was a job that needed to be done and questions that had to be answered.
I summoned all of my courage, made my way to the counter and ordered a single Halloween Whopper. When the cashier heard my order and chuckled under his breath, I knew I was in for an interesting meal.
The Halloween Whopper is Burger King’s latest attempt at a fun and festive Halloween-themed food item. Made available on Sept. 28, the mutant hamburger has all of ingredients of a normal Whopper, with added A.1. Steak Sauce and a bun that is jet black.
Out of the four other people present in the Burger King at the time I was there, one woman also ordered the Halloween Whopper. I watched as she took it and made her way to a table. The only thing I heard her say upon unwrapping the sandwich was, “It looks so creepy,” which wasn’t comforting in the slightest. I sipped Dr Pepper and half-hoped they would just forget my order and I could leave.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.
“You sure you don’t want fries or anything else?” the cashier said as he handed over the burger on a tray. I could tell he genuinely wasn’t trying to make more money for the Burger King; he was just a friend who wanted to help me avoid a dark fate. I denied his offer and shuffled over to a table.
The black monstrosity was presented wrapped in white paper, decorated to look like a mummy. As I gazed down at the sandwich, the eyes of the mummy seemed to stare right into mine almost woefully, as if to say, “No, don’t do it. You have dreams, remember?”
I unwrapped the burger and found that, unfortunately, the bun was the only part of the sandwich that looked exactly like the advertisement on the menu. The lettuce was a bit wilted, and the pickles, onions and tomato were thrown on haphazardly. The A.1. sauce and mayonnaise oozed out in an alarming fashion, but the bun looked just as black and creepy as its likeness on the menu.
The mound of food before me didn’t look like food at all. It looked like an old stuffed animal that got stuck in a sewer. It looked like a giant piece of charcoal covered in white bugs. It looked like space garbage.
Every fiber of my being told me to throw the alien sandwich into the nearest dumpster. I silenced my own common sense, picked it up and took a bite.
To my surprise, the burger didn’t taste like garbage at all. It tasted like a fast food-grade burger that happened to have steak sauce on it. As I ate, I began to wish that the burger had been served along with a blindfold. It wasn’t eating the burger that was hard; the hard part was simply looking at it in between bites. If I thought it looked disgusting the moment I unwrapped it, it only got worse from there.
I wish I could say I finished the Halloween Whopper, but, alas, I only got about half way through when I felt so sick just looking at the pile of mutated black mush in front of me that I had to throw it away. As I dumped the remainder of the sandwich in the trash can, the four other Burger King patrons all seemed to give me a glance, almost in solidarity. I can safely say it has been the only time I have experienced a feeling of unspoken companionship while in a Burger King.
I don’t resent the Halloween Whopper. Really, it’s more of a spectacle than a sandwich. It exists to be gawked at and talked about, and if you’re dumb enough to actually eat it, you probably deserve all of the spooky consequences.
