Thursday, June 6, 2013

"nothin' about no smokehouse cheddar burger"

This summer I am blogging "Familyisms."
These are the stories which have rise to quotes and phrases we use in the family over and over again.
Some of the underlying quotes need no explanation but some, like the one that is the subject of this post, do require a bit of back story.

The phrase that is also the title of this post  "nothin' about no smokehouse cheddar burger" was born on a hot summer day when the fam had gone to northeastern Oklahoma for the weekend to ski and swim on Lake Tenkiller and to float the Illinois River.
We'd spent all day Saturday on the lake. It's a beautiful place with long term and strong connections to our family. We had a grand time but by day's end we were all tired and more than a little hungry.
We pulled into the Holiday Inn, Talequah, Oklahoma, just as it was growing dark. We parked the boat, unloaded kids and towels and ice chests and picnic baskets and bundled all of them/that into the rooms we'd rented for the night.
As soon as we had the kids changed into dry clothes we headed out for food.
It was my suggestion that we go to the Walmart across from the hotel and grab a hamburger at the McDonald's restaurant inside the store. It seemed logical to me at the time, that we could feed our hungry brood and pick up supplies for our float trip the next day in the same place. Therein lies the problem we had. McDonald's was closed for the evening. Everyone spread to grab what they wanted and/or needed for another day in the water and sun.
Some time later, my husband made his way to the service desk to page folks, by name, to meet at the checkout. Having pulled fledgling skiers all day hauled them in and out of the boat, driven the boat and the car that pulled it to the lake, he was in no mood to be further delayed from dinnertime followed swiftly by bedtime.
Here the story takes on another layer:
There always seems to be a problem with whatever the Hub orders. I am not sure why, but his order, no matter where we go is wrong well more than half the time.  At a drive thru, that seems to be the case even more often. A drive thru was all that was open by the time we got checked out at Walmart.
There was a Burger King in the parking lot. The lights were still on through chairs had been placed atop tables and there was mopping being done around them. We pulled up to the menu and I whispered to the kids plain hamburgers, plain fries, that's it guys. We'll get drinks at the hotel.
It should have worked. "Five hamburgers, five fries and a quarter pounder, no mayo no tomato" he told the person on the other end of the drive thru speaker.
The man hates tomato almost as much as he hates mayo. He will not touch anything that has gone near to either. This time, though, it was not the tomato/mayo problem he was contending with. It was an even more complete mix up that caused him to utter those now famous words.
"So that will be five hamburgers, five fries, and a smokehouse cheddar burger" said the voice at the end of the speaker.
He takes a deep breathe. He lets it out. He pauses for a moment. And then, in one of the loudest tones I've ever heard him use he said, "Nah, nothin' about no smokehouse cheddar burger."
I collapsed in a fit of laughter. The other occupants of the vehicle collapses into fits of laughter. The driver/orderer found nothing funny about any of it.
All this time later, I still chuckle at the words.




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