Quarter Pound Love Affair: When I First Realized Food Affected Me

I don’t recall how often I was able to convince my mother to actually take me to my favorite “restaurant”, but it was never often enough. As an elementary schooler I would crawl around on hands and knees desperately begging her to stop cooking borsht so that she could drive me to that special place, the one that served the best food ever. Its name started with an M and ended with a me hyperventilating with excitement--well, kind of.

There were varying forms of love in my life then; as any young child, I felt strong emotions for my playmates, doggies, kitties, other absurdly adorable baby animals, stuffed animals, gummy candy (in the shape of animals) and, finally, anything related to fast-food--usually smothered with ketchup and/or cheese. Mention of fast food may or may not surprise you in this context, but I had found early on that nothing put butterflies in my stomach like the hint of possibility that that night was going to be the night I would be able to convince my Mom to buy me fast-food for dinner. Keep in mind that I had to work for those outings and that they didn’t come often.

Had I been wiser, I may have questioned my rapidly blossoming love for the #4 with a shovel-full of french fries and soda on the side. If I could go back and interrogate my first three #4s, I would demand answers to so many questions: Will my young mind be able to handle this repeated state of heightened arousal followed by food coma? What is IN those fries?? Is this a one-sided state of infatuation or can the Triangular Theory of Love help me understand my feelings in a new way?



My relationship with the #4 meal evolved with time. The #4 was so good I didn’t know what to do with myself when I was eating it. Many years later, on a sunny California day, my friend T—just T, to preserve his anonymity and sense of self-worth—described exactly what I never knew the #4 had made me want to do to it:

“I woke up the next morning to find myself covered in nasty meat and torn hamburger wrappers. Upon further examination, I noticed E--- asleep in the fetal position on a rug by the sofa, covered in ketchup and what appeared to be bun particles. The ceiling showed signs of a struggle with condiments—most evidently, pickles—and napkins lay strewn across the living room floor. The memories started coming back to me. I knew then that I had gone Wolverine on the burgers.”

Like all intensely good feelings, my extreme passion for the #4 gradually faded. To keep the spark alive I began fry eating competitions with my then fifth-grade-self. Could I finish the #4 sandwich AND eat every fry in the little, gloriously large basket?

Occasionally, I will feel an overwhelming, intense craving for the #4. Actually, just writing this makes me want to frenziedly run to the nearest fast-food place. I guess I could at least smash a lamp to ease the adrenaline rush. Outings to visit #4 had exposed me to the delirious joy of high-fat, high salt and sodium deliciousness, and after enough #4s, I found it increasingly difficult to enjoy other types of food.