The Hamburger Orientation Incident

In the sixth grade I had a small circle of friends that lived in my neighborhood. We ran around together after school and on the weekends. We slept over at one another's houses. The most prominent memory I have of one of those friends happened when we went on a trip to the mountains with my parents. 

It was a strange trip. The three of us were between sixth and seventh grade. A typical trip to the mountains for my family was going to Cades Cove, riding the loop, and then cooking out in the picnic area. On this trip, though I have zero recollection why, we stopped to eat at a hamburger joint in the Townsend area. We were sitting around eating burgers and fries as a group when Steve observed that I was eating my hamburger upside down. 

If this concept blows your mind you fall into my line of thinking. To Steve's way of thinking there was a top and a bottom to a hamburger. I can understand that there is a top and bottom hamburger bun. The bottom one was against the dish it was baked in and is flat. The top is rounded from rising during baking. I get that logic. Steve explained that you should align your burger so that your top teeth hit the top bun and your bottom teeth hit the bottom bun. 

Believe it or not, this was more thought than I had ever put into eating, hamburgers, or much of anything up to that point in life. My ten-year-old experience threshold was exceeded. I was also offended that anyone could think I was doing hamburger eating wrong. I chewed on the idea as I chewed on a few bites of my burger. Then I attacked his logic. 

My argument was that his orientation criteria was wrong. I didn't base my bite orientation based on bun shape. Instead the burger arrived at my mouth based on grip. At ten I had child sized hands. My method for picking up a hamburger was to use two hands. I slid my fingers under the bottom of the burger and my thumbs on top. As I lifted my burger to my mouth I rolled both wrists and bent my elbows. This motion universally resulted in the bottom bun (as defined two paragraphs above) pointing skyward. This grip gave me the best purchase and was the right way to hold a eat a hamburger. I even explained that it was a universal thing because if you had a burger on a plate or unwrapped a burger at McDonald's it would always arrive to me, once unwrapped, top bun up and turn during the lifting action. 

This seemed to frustrate Steve. He summed his objection to my method up simply. If that was the result of how I was picking up my burger then I needed to fix it. I should start putting my thumbs under the bottom of the burger so I was eating the burger correctly. 

Now I was irritated. Steve went on to explain that it mattered because if the hamburger was put together correctly that it tastes different because you get to the condiments, dressings, meats, and cheese in different orders. There was an intentionality behind the construction of that hamburger and my upside down way of eating it was undoing all of that. Steve and I must have been experiencing burgers.

I remember countering with the McDonald's cheeseburger. Biting into it upside down made no difference because there are no ingredients between the bottom bun and the meat. Between the top bun and the meat I would encounter ketchup, mustard, onions, pickle, and cheese. I argued that due to the fact that the pickles, onions, mustard, and ketchup didn't cover all of the top bun that there was no uniformity to the bite consistency of a burger. The taste would remain the same regardless of orientation. 

Steve didn't agree. We devolved into argument. Eventually name calling and shouting started. I remember that my Mom had to get involved and reason with us. Neither of us was backing down. I didn't think it was wrong to eat a hamburger either direction. I resented being told that there was a right and wrong way. I suspect he was not the first or last person to consider me an uncultured savage. 

I do not remember when Steve and I lost touch. I changed schools and moved in the 8th grade. I do not remember ever talking to him after that point. 

That conversation has lived in my head at least thirty years. I remember the first time I ever grilled a hamburger for myself that I flashed back to it. I was building a super burger. In my youthful experimentation I was thinking through my experiences with sandwiches. Interestingly enough I have right and wrong rules about how I build a sandwich. 

One piece of bread, typically the right, gets mayo. The other gets mustard. Pickle, onion, and lettuce go on the mustard side. The cheese goes on the mayo side. The meat goes in the middle of that, but I always put it on top of the veggies on the mustard size before bringing the sandwich together. No, I don't pay any attention to the direction I eat the sandwich. 

When I was building that burger I followed my sandwich logic. I found myself disgusted with the idea that there was a right and wrong way to build a hamburger. I stayed in that mode of thinking for a long time. Some years later it would occur to me that there was a flaw that I hadn't conceptualized that has nothing to do with hamburgers. 

I have always been very open to learning new ways of seeing and doing things. If I had turned my burger over and it had suddenly tasted so much more amazing I would have eaten it Steve's way from that day on. If the flip had been accompanied by a shaft of light and a single rising musical note had rang out in rising intonation as if to emphasize the learning of an occluded secret I would have been like wise enlightened. Truth be told, even if any of that had happened, I would probably have remained rebellious and not eaten my hamburgers as instructed. 

The purpose of Steve's information session was not to educate me or improve my experience. It was to tell me that I was wrong. He had the superior perspective and if I didn't behave as indicated then I was poorer for that. I could not stand being condescended to. Even if there had been benefits to his thinking, there were lost because I was not ready to receive the teachings of the burger messiah. 

Thinking back on this is interesting to me. I remember being really put out with Steve. He managed to annoy me talking about the way to eat a hamburger. That does not say much for my tolerance for the perspectives of others does it?  I find myself ruminating on two very opposing lessons I have learned in life. 

The first of these is that you have to take people as they are rather than how you wish they were. I am certain that the hamburger orientation incident, as I have come to think of it, was not the end of our friendship. In the spirit of ten year old boys everywhere we had an intense disagreement that likely would have been solved with a few traded punches or at worst a bloodied nose if adults had not been present. I doubt I would have disqualified Steve as a friend or a person because of his strongly held views on hamburgers even then. 

I get along with most people. I take pride in that. Even when there are important differences that cause an incompatibility I am very adept at making nice. This isn't being fake. This practice is a part of having character. I don't feel any need to 'correct,' people I disagree with. Most of the time I don't have any interest in wasting my time or energy. I make nice when I can. I avoid when I cannot. I let them be who they are without hearing my opinion. It is the only way I know to lead a peaceful life. 

There are behaviors I will not tolerate. That is true of most everyone. We have standards and boundaries we enforce.  Some people refuse to accept or deal with those boundaries. The result of this is a toxic relationship. 

That is where a lesson I have learned comes into conflict with accepting people for who they are. The lesson is simple but profound; avoid infection. I have been taught this practically several times, I first read it in Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power.  

The idea is simple. A person who is perpetually unlucky, unhappy, negative, involved in drama, or similarly afflicted is infected with a contagious form of misery. By exposing yourself you risk being caught up in their self inflicted problems. This must be avoided at all costs. Even attempts to help, though well intentioned, will only result in the infected party's situation remaining the same and your own worsening. 

The reason for this, I have learned through experience, is that no one stays in negative circumstances constantly. There is a choice being made that keeps a person always down. More importantly you will not discover that they are the source of their own ill fortune until you are too close to the situation to not take some damage from exposure. 

So which is it? Do I avoid the perpetually miserable or do I accept them for who they are? I think the answer is both. It is a judgement of another when you choose not to keep company with them. However, if you do not suppress their ability to remain themselves you are keeping true to both lessons. 

I think the line is important though. We all need different points of view in our lives. People who have contrasting values to my own can provide valuable counsel when it is needed. I would not reject Steve from my life for his strong opinions on how I eat my hamburgers. On the other hand if he attacked me about it every time we saw one another as a type of hamburger jihad that becomes toxic and cannot be tolerated. Is the rule that applies an matter of extremes? 

Nah. They really don't have anything to do with one another. It just gave me a really goofy way to belabor some nostalgia. There is no real moral to the story. There isn't really anything to learn except maybe that there are at least two school of thought about which way to bite into a hamburger. 

Yeah I have just been bullshitting around for most of this post. Not everything needs a preachy life lesson. Sometimes I just write things for the hell of it. Man, I wish I could tell how far everyone got in reading this before they bailed out. 

Please, God, tell me if you have strong feelings about hamburger orientation. Steve did as I remember it. If I looked him up, I doubt he would even remember that day, but who knows. I am thankful that I remember that nonsense. It has given me a lot of chuckles over the years including giving me something to write about tonight. 

Mostly I am just grateful to have lived long enough to have had a variety of friends throughout my life. I love the ones I have. I appreciate you all even if I don't spend enough time or chat with you enough. Thanks for reading my ramblings. I hope it makes you laugh or think.