DEN – Burgers

I’m in the Denver airport.  I’m starving.  I get off the plane and I see everyone eating McDonalds.  Everyone.  I see the Sbarro-like pizza place and the rolls swimming in butter that looks like the slick of an oil spill.  It looks glorious.  The Taco Bell knock off is to the left.  The McDonalds.  I want french fries.  Tons of french fries.  I want to feel that sting in my mouth from the salt.  I walk around, thinking mostly about this stupid blog and this stupid idea that I started today about blogging about my stupid issues with food.  I check to see how many people, if any, have read the previous post.  Forty seven people have read the post and I can’t disappoint my legion of fans.  So I stick to my guns and go to a restaurant called Timberline, you know, cuz I’m in Denver.  The only thing I want is a hamburger.  With bacon and cheese and a bun soaked in butter that I can feel on my lips for the rest of the week.  With fries.  (Note also that I’m having a cra-cra nicotine fit.  I’ll try and blog that away some other time.)

I order a salad.  A stupid spinach salad with stupid strawberries on it.  Little almond slivers.  A balsamic glaze.  What that means is there’s no dressing on it.  It’s like a whisper of dressing.  Like a taunt.  I eat the salad.  The only reason I enjoy it is because I’m going to write about it minutes later.  I pay.  I get my suitcase and stuff together to step back out into the concourse with three more hours of layover to go.  I look at the couple at the table next to mine, both enjoying huge burgers with fries.  They are happier than me and they always will be.  I hate them.  And their baby.  I leave the restaurant and immediately before me is an Einstein Bros bagels.

Asiago cheese bagel with veggie cream cheese.

Now I’m sitting alone, surrounded by my favorite kind of cuisine:  food court.  I’m thinking about Portland.  The hotel.  And hoping beyond hope that there’s not a treadmill.