Have it your way

The SacTownGuy has always had an infinity for Burger King. Ok, well I don't like to eat the slop there much but I have a long history with the King. You may not believe this but the SacTownGuy had two tours of duty working at BK back in the 80's. The first one, in 11th grade, was my first real job. Or at least the first job where I was hired without knowing anybody. Just walked in and got the job. Went from fry cook to smartest guy there in about a week. It was during my 7 months living in eastern TN so not hard to be the smartest guy there. $3.35 an hour and they didn't pay overtime. I worked the 5:00 PM to 3:00 AM shift. Those were the days. Cleaning the fry vat out with a red neck with a thick accent at 2 or 3 in the morning... oh the joy! Drove in to Knoxville every week or two and spent my whole pay check after cashing it at the Food King. All spent on important things like "big" 6 x 9 speakers for the car, new Run DMC tape, etc.... Then I went back for a second tour at BK in the Friendly City my freshman year of college. That lasted a week or two... and still at $3.35 an hour I believe. You may recall the BK logo looked about like this back then.

A long way from cleaning the fry vat at two in the morning, today I took the kids for a little lunch with daddy. Pretty much the choice is either BK or Micky D's and really depends on who has the better happy meal toys. Either way I am stopping to get myself some food somewhere else so really doesn't matter to me. After stopping at Q'doba for a burito and a SacTownBee we headed over to BK as they have the Incredible Hulk toys right now. By the time we finally got seated in the play area my veggie burito was a little cold but life is good when you have lunch at one of these places. The kids LOVE IT, you got some decent food for yourself, you read the paper, the kids play with whoever is there, and all is good.

After finishing my burito, iced tea from the King (I forgot they have that crappy machine made iced tea) I read the Bee and watched the kids. Fun was had by all. Here's the little girl running off for more fun.

We were there 45 minutes or so and all three of us had a great time. Plus, Kitty Kat was getting a breather at home so the whole gang was happy. However, when you go to BK you have to interact with the employees of BK. In my experience there are good people working there but not always the swiftest. Today the little dude had been given a toy of the bad guy from the Hulk. Of course, he wanted the Hulk. He kept telling me, "I want the big green Hulk doing this" (showing me his version of the Hulk flexing his arms overhead and frowning). He went up and tried to exchange it himself, as he was able to do so last time we were there, but he got nothing. He told me they needed to talk to his daddy so I went and asked the rocket scientiest at the counter if we could trade. She said, with little conviction, "I can't do that." I said, "well they did it last time we were here...." She relented and went and look through all the bags to find a Hulk for the little dude. No such luck but he got another one he liked better so we made the trade after a good 30 seconds of indecision by the little dude. Seriously though, shouldn't they make about 95% Hulk's and 5% other toys? Who wants one of the other toys? Doesn't everybody want a Hulk? Why not just have 4 or 5 different Hulk's and maybe 1 bad guy for the contrarian kids? Plus, I think a good percentage of people are NOT there for the food so be a little nicer about trading toys! The way I see it I am paying four bucks for a Hulk toy and coincedently they throw in some free food with it.

Oh ya, they have a new thing at BK... apples shaped like french fries. No joke. They are in a sealed plastic bag but they give you a fry looking container to put them in. Since my kids get apple sauce or apples this was a nice treat. They really liked them. Oh ya, they were NOT fried apples. When I first saw the picture I thought they were fried apples. Nice job Mr. King! Give a raise to whoever came up with that idea!


Oh ya, just remembered the manager at the BK in Pigeon Forge, TN was named John Henry. I bet he is still there in the Smokey's somewhere. He was a good dude.

Peace out.