Hold The Pickle, Hold The Lettuce
This morning (as promised last Wendesday ) was 11 miles at Reach 11 Recreation Area, starting and stopping at that same picnic table.
When I was there last Wednesday, I noted the presence of somebody's lunch still sitting on the picnic table:
Several things about this meal struck me -
* Somebody went to the trouble of toting a full box of fries, two tubs of ketchup and one package of - what is that, fry sauce? ranch dressing? - all the way to Reach 11, and then walked it all the way out to this picnic table, and then left almost all of the fries in the box.
* There was no Wendys bag - just the food items.
* This was around 8 in the morning, so it seemed obvious that the meal had been there at least overnight. But there were no flies on the fries and no bugs in the ketchup (I'm not sure that the packaged sauce contains any actual food value, so maybe the critters weren't interested).
But the main thing that got me was the message on the front of the fry box:
We figured out that there are 256 ways to personalize a Wendy's hamrger. Luckily someone was paying attention in math class.Now, being a computer person, that number 256 gets my attention immediately - it's 28, or 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2.
I immediately recognized that as simply being the number of combinations of eight condiments or additions, but it took me a while to come up with the possibilities - I finally decided that it's
Ketchup/No Ketchup
Mustard/No Mustard
Mayo/No Mayo
Tomato/No Tomato
Lettuce/No Lettuce
Onion/No Onion
Pickle/No Pickle
Cheese/No Cheese
I considered "Bun/No Bun", but realized that that wouldn't work for two reasons - if there was no BUN, then you couldn't have any of the other ingredients (well, maybe the cheese) - and besides, the lack of a bun might mean that it's no longer a hamburger.
I haven't checked this by googling for the possible permutations of a Wendy's burger - I've decided that, while the use of Google as an extension of our corporate memory is a wonderful thing, the very existence of Google seems to eliminate a lot of wonderful speculation. Remember how we used to wonder what the the lyrics to a song might be? Not any more - ZING and suddenly the actual real words to "Jet" by Paul McCartney are on a screen in front of me, along with links to the possible meanings.
I'll take a 11101100 otherwise known as combination #236 or a not(19). This could actually make ordering kind of fun.
"Flip the Pickle Bit on that last order"
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During the low-carb craze, Wendy's was well known around town to helpfully leave off the bun when you ordered a burger and would put the burger + toppings into a small plastic bowl. I think it may have been a side-salad bowl but I can't be positive any more. They would also provide a handy plastic fork :)
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Jim,
A burger without a bun-if you go to In n Out Burger is called Protein Style.
http://www.in-n-out.com/secretmenu.asp
Even Jimmy Johns has their sandwiches with no bread....called the JJ Unwich
http://www.jimmyjohns.com/menu/menu.aspx
Su
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It was really interesting reading about the points that struck you regarding someone’s lunch you saw on the picnic table. You are really brilliant that you found out topics for writing the post even from a plate of food. Ha-Ha. Your observation skill is really nice as you figured out many facts about that food such as the meal had been there at least overnight. The 256 ways to personalize a Wendy's hamburger on the front of the fry box was really interesting. I have really enjoyed reading this post and I will definitely share this post with my friends and colleges.
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