The Time Has Arrived

Normally on the weekends I bring a nice lunch along with me. Today was no different. Roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans were on the menu. Sure, it wasn't a gigantic portion of any of the above, and even combined it was smallish. I usually eat midway through the morning show, about 2 hours into my shift. Before I had a chance to do so, I was informed that cupcakes awaited any who wished to sup upon them. Honestly, I eat such items even less frequently than I eat and review items from the vending machine.

I gave in and ate a cupcake today, being ravenously hungry from not yet having my lunch. With all that sugar in me, I made it a handful of hours without eating my lunch. By the time my stomach started to growl, my shift was nearly over ... (un?)fortunately I had something other than roast beef waiting to quell the rumblings in my yearning tummy.

Yes.

A few days earlier I had procured none other than the legendary Double Beef Stacker. A chance encounter with the gentleman who fills the vending machine saw me entering a plea for him to repopulate the vending machine with the king of all sandwiches, and the namesake of this blog. My nights were restless with anticipation. Would my beseeching do any good? Was there any chance my prayers would be heard?

A few days later I eagerly checked the vending machine and the sight that greeted me made my heart swell with joy! A near entire row devoted to the Double Beef Stacker! Without hesitation I plunked the money into the machine and greedily hustled back to the fridge to stash away my meal for a time when I could fully lose myself into it.

Let's jump forward now. I stood in front of the microwave as the sandwich cooked. Glorious cooking beef wafted through the air. My stomach rumbled insistently, totally unaware of what my brain knew was an atrocity topped with cheese and a bun. It's kind of like being drunk at a party and an ugly girl comes onto you and rubs your crotch. Even if you have no interest, your soldier probably still salutes. For you women, it's probably akin to walking past a clothing store you don't like and seeing a sign proclaiming a sale on shoes ... ok that was bad. No, I'm not a chauvinist ... some of my best friends are women!

Once I sat down and prepared to tackle the DBS, I'll admit to a moment of hesitation. As has happened to me several times, the thought that I was nuts to do this to myself with such gusto did fleet through my brain. I pushed that aside and forced myself to get to it. I have a duty to uphold after all!

As the pictures will attest, the cheese poured out from beneath the bun and patties like some kind of geyser. It had this only semi-melty look. Pockets of translucence that many extremely processed cheeses get when heated dotted the surface. I had the idea that it wasn't quite sure if it was supposed to be in a liquid state or solid.

Finally I took the first bite. Was it as bad as I had hoped or feared it would be back on the day I first saw it in the vending machine? Definitely not. Was it even near as good as the sole burger I reviewed earlier that I liked? That's definitely not twice.

My first thought was that this meat tasted exactly like the horrible burgers my awful school cafeteria served. The texture was wretched, and the beef tasted as if it had been highly diluted with water so that little flavor remained. Amazingly it seemed to alternate between being mushy and springy/chewy. The fact that the sesame seeds were unusually hard didn't help matters.

Just as the meat vastly varied, so did the taste. One moment the flavor would startle me by being juicy and flavorful, and the next it would bring to mind un-spiced meatloaf, with the same consistency. In general I almost wondered if I were eating a warmed up version of the wax models fast food companies use in their commercials.

Far worse than the meat was, yet again, the bread ... I could smell the sickly sweet aroma as soon as it came out of the microwave. It wasn't quite paste-like, as the buns on other vending machine sandwiches have been, it was still the low point of this particular sandwich. Do people really want to combine two vending machine staples, the burger, and the Honey Bun? I guess if the answer is yes, those folks will be dying to get their hands on The Double Beef Stacker.

I'd swear there must have been some kind of competition with this sandwiches attributes with which one could underachieve the most: the taste, the aroma, or the appearance? If so, the appearance wins hands down. The bun looked defeated, like a drunken out of work husband back from the bar to face the wife after another day of pretending to be out job hunting. The cheese once melted took on the look of the wrinkled skin of a pensioner only moments after it cooled. If you've ever had soup that developed a skin on top of it you know the look I mean. I find that to be about as appetizing as dining on road kill served out of Britney Spears week old panties.

In all, The Double Beef Stacker isn't quite as bad as I initially feared. Could I eat it in a pinch? Sure. Would I enjoy it? Probably as much as I enjoy my alarm clock going off at three AM. At the very least, the Double Beef Stacker has given me the gift of entertaining me with this blog as the result. Oh, and I've gotten to spend time with you too. Isn't life grand? Until our next journey!


2 bites/5