In “Take me back, I want to go back” news, unwitting urban archaeologists have uncovered the sealed tomb of the King.
New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer Thursday could not resist getting a peak at a Burger King that closed more than a decade ago but remained intact.
Meyer posted the video Wednesday of a Burger King space that was never leased to another tenant at the aging mall.
A temporary promotional wall typically used when stores close hid the fast-food spot, with the owner-franchisee or mall ownership never returning to remove seating and equipment.
People Magazine and other sites reported hidden Burger King was first photographed in April.
The Home of the Whopper even had some leftover trash when Meyer and a mall official took a quick tour of the 1980s-vintage restaurant with teal and mauve decor. Still on hand was seating with an ’80s look and even beverage dispensers.
Note the almost pristine 1980s wall glyphs. Scholars of ancient ideograms believe the images’ purpose was to urge petitioners to BUY, CONSUME, and WATCH TV.
The lost restaurant has been identified with 99.99% certainty as the tomb of the King, ruler of a fast food empire that reached its zenith in the High 80s period.
While plant offerings and libations of pop and barbecue sauce were found in the junk food mausoleum, the King’s body itself was not present. That’s because he rose as an undead horror sometime in the aughts. Now the King shambles around the globe, defiling everyone’s food like a Current Year harpy.
But instead of excrement, the King dumps soy and poz.
Remember when you could walk into a fast food joint at your local mall and get a burger and fries without the parent corporation dictating morality to you?
Good times.
Then again, infanticide was the law of the land back in the 80s. So maybe it isn’t so bad staying here where it’s not.
How do you ward off the King’s marauding plastic mummy?
Even without the moralizing we are getting to the point where the younger generation won’t understand that there was a time where you could walk into a fast food place and:
1.) Get a burger that was actually meat and tasted somewhat decent (even if greasy.)
2.) Not have to pay the price of a whole meal to get a single sandwich.
3.) Have a pleasant interaction with another human being.
But on the other hand mourning the taste of corporate fast food is kind of like mourning the passing of blockbuster. Yeah in some ways they are better than the crap we are dealing with now, but they also were responsible for killing off the local outlets which were a lot better than the monolithic corporate entity.
Yes, the corporate outlets are doing just fine. It’s the family-owned local places killed off by the lockdowns that are worth shedding a tear over.
I ward off the Soyburger King by beating him to the punch. I buy a different fake meat that consists of lentils and Chinese pea proteins instead of soy.
…Until I want to eat actual meat. I’m stocking canned meat and fish for the Winter, and I’ve mastered the art of microwaving ground beef until it cooks all the way through. The other Millennials never learned from their mommies that meat needs to rest in order to finish cooking.
One way to ward off the plastic mummy is to cook at home. Last night I made “Green Chile Enchilada Casserole” from a family recipe my wife brought into the marriage. The recipe is so old it was printed in a dot-matrix printer. Spaghetti with scratch-made sauce is another favorite of ours. I decided several years ago that her spaghetti sauce is better than anything we could buy in a jar, so now we make our spaghetti sauce from scratch. I’ve even learned to make it myself.
Today, it’s cooking from home. Tomorrow, it’s convincing the HoA to let you erect a giant greenhouse for your victory garden.
Every man should know how to cook and how to grow a simple garden.
I would also recommend that men learn to cook with their wives, if they don’t learn to cook from them. I know I did. It is a pleasure to cook or bake for her, but cooking with her is even better.
Every man should have at least 1 fruit tree in his backyard.
It’s a shame that anthologies are dead, because this story would make a very good prompt for one.
Somebody tell Alexander Hellene.
I miss when the world still had heart. I try to capture that 80’s the “The future is boxy, geometric, and now” aesthetic on the things I design.
I miss that “Not knowing what you’re doing is the new knowing what you’re doing” kind of spirit. Where you just put everything you had into something, and if it didn’t pan out, you still did something cool.
That’s the world I want to see. A world of relentless self-belief. No impostor syndrome, no social anxiety, no worries about “I’m not good enough”. Just dudes pursuing their dreams and doing things for the sake of doing them.
The triumph of the bugmen put paid to that particular zeitgeist. But don’t worry, their comeuppance is about due.