Meat Master Quintet

The first contribution, from honored and hallowed headquarters of the city of brotherly love...

If I were the more compact, United Kingdom-descendant version of Julius Caesar; and if I was on the, let’s say, Arlington campaign spreading and enforcing Roman decrees and seeing to it that there was a vomitorium in every dwelling space; I would absolutely take heed to what that soothsayer had to say. Except for in my misshapen hypothetical Caesarian scenario, the witch o’ fortune wouldn’t tell me to watch my ass on the fifteenth day of March. No! She would have said to me with a slight gluttonous grin: “Beware the five guys of burger mastery!”

Now if the soothsayer knows anything about actually seeing the unforeseen, she certainly knows of my now fabled eating habits. If one’s enjoyment of eating large quantities of meat could be given an apt name, (unlike most perfumes) mine would be called “Red Filthy Lingering Lust”; and it would be sprayed skunk-style all up in the fair city of Arlington, Virginia.

The soothsayer is not alone on the island of I-am-aware-that-sean-is-a-connoisseur-of-the-moomoo-animal. My bazooka-brained brother-in-law and sporadic late-night donut accomplice knows all too well of my carnivorous exploits. Which is why it surprised not only myself, but he too was aghast at the realization that he never ushered me to or even mentioned the little peanut-shell riddled place that would become my new burger Mecca. Or dare I say, Burgvana.

Yes, as it turns out, heaven on the place formerly known as Pangea, aka Five Guys is and has been an Arlington staple for the last however many decades. Unfortunately, a nice chunk of those fattening years have been spent by my oblivious ass up here in the real capital of Penn’s woods attempting to notch time whilst staving off insanity like Thoreau on Walden Pond. And to think, I’ve known my wife’s brother for the better part of a dog year, and he never thought to tell me. For shame. But to his defense, his negligence could only be attributed to the fact that Sean Gray and the best burger joint in town had to have already happened. It’s like quarterback and cheerleader: Oh those two crazy kids?! They hooked up way back in freshman year.

The star-aligned coupling is always assumed. But I digest…

So after much ado over this grave, grave oversight. It was time to eat the damn burger! The next day we go to Five Guys, step on peanut shells and I proceed to order a “regular-sized” bacon-cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, pickle, ketchup, and a tear drop of mayo. I could continue to describe the General Patton, no-nonsense atmosphere of the place, the ever graceful passing of intoxicating sizzling flesh odors past my cilia into some probably large region of my brain causing me to prematurely and unknowingly make chewing-on-a-hambone-dog faces at everyone in my circumference. But I am growing sleepy and I fear that if I write the aforementioned descriptions and continue in this hyperbolic state of mind, I will get in my car and begin the three-hour burglimage down I-95 to Arlington. Tonight.

The number is called. The once neglectful turns heroic! Brother-in-law comes back to the table with two greezy sacks. He dumps them and I ascertain the whereabouts of my soon-to-be bludgeoned sandwich of ground chuck. I grab it and get to it. The events that took place soon after I sent my enameled meat rippers into the burger are not easily remembered. The story that I got from my tablemates was that I was in perpetual dog-face, I would not respond to my wife’s questions: “Is it good? Sean, is it good? Sean?” and that I scarfed the damn thing like it was a Skittle of beef.

All I can remember is that the bun was smashed around the burger to the point that it viced, rather, enveloped the calorie-rich contents that lay within its starchy walls. It took on the form of what would later be described by my brother-in-law as a “meatsule”. Abhorred but true. This capsule, of meat and other ingredients already mentioned was like a much larger, Rubik’s Cube sized profiteral of harmonious design that rang my bell like Quasimoto. It truly was the best burger that I have ever eaten in my life. Our gang relished the experience so much that we all went back for more the very next day where multiple burger slayings were committed. I wouldn’t know, I blacked out.

On my ride back to the city where the mayor looks like a homeless guy, I found out from my lovely wife that the “regular-sized” burger was anything but. There was a multiple patty situation, folks. In fact, it was reported that after I recorded my first bite, I looked at no one in particular with the face of a drowsy Dachshund and muttered the words “Et tu second patty?”