Good Thing Those Transfats Are Gone
I was out on my errands today and realized it was lunch time and I was famished. However, it was teeming more than Noah could imagine, and I was dressed in raggedy shorts and a tee-shirt. Fine dining was out. I sought a drive-through, something with which I lack intimate familiarity.
I found a Wendy’s out on a major road and joined the queue. I seemed to have the only vehicle without visible rust.
Wendy’s, it seems, no longer sells burgers by the pound, or name, but rather by how much of the cow you actually want on the bun. There was a triple and a quadruple, with bacon, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and some kind of strange, runny ingredient, unless the rain was making the menu sign blurry. In fact, there were multiple signs, and they began well before you were near the inaudible ordering speaker. The choices were amazing for the diveristy of the hugeness. Fat Albert would have been bloated.
As I rounded the corner to more menus—sort of like being in Disneyland’s “It’s a Wide, Wide World”—I found chicken options so large that beaks and feet were sticking out of the bun and overlapping the pictures. The largest items didn’t even fit on the alloted menu space, and you had to assume what new food territory loomed to the top and right of the square.
Fries came in frightening sizes along with other “free” sides, which included what looked like an artificially enlarged baked potato, until I realized it was actual size. Drinks began at “gigantic.”
The guy ahead of me received his order in three bags, and his car developed more and more of a lean as each was deposited on the passenger seat.
I had a triple burger because it was the largest offering that I thought I could actually get my mouth around. (I was wrong.) They don’t provide utensils since these aren’t so much meals as fights to the finish. The women who take your money don’t look you in the eye, and the the ones who atually give you the food have a sort of pitying look on their face.
Good thing they got rid of those transfats, huh?
© Alan Weiss 2007. All rights reserved.
ed.kless
One thing about Wendy’s they understand options pricing. See this commercial from the late 80’s –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWAKtYGJZSM
Perhaps they offer too many.
Legend has it that the triple burger was introduced for one reason – to sell more double burgers, a classic flanking product move.
DSA
The person giving you the food was probably trying to figure out what kind of car you were driving… Probably the first time they had seen a Bentley
Interesting idea they the triple was introduced to sell more doubles…
DSA
Another thought is that we sometimes have the same strategy when submitting proposals. We offer the “triple” option when we really want to lock in the “double”.