License to Ill

I feel wonderful and gross all at the same time.

Kate's away a conference for a few days and you know who got to stay behind to punch ye old time clock. After an afternoon conversation with co-workers about burgers and chips (fries) I NEEDED a burger. Well the fish and chips shop at the end of the road does some tasty-looking burgers. I done a pretty good job at avoiding this place so far for obvious health reasons (Kate fell victim to the deep fried snickers bar a while ago).

Upon entry to the likely vermin infested take away i noticed not just a few burger options but a plethora. and cheap too. I was just going to get a cheeseburger, but for an extra $1.20 i could get bacon+egg+beet+mayo. Do you think I could pass that up? Hell no. No way in the world.

Look at this beaut:

and for the price of $4.50 the thing was a behemoth, this is the overhead angle is only the last 1/3.

If that wasn't enough I panicked while ordering. Suddenly in the midst of telling the guy i wanted a "bacon, egg and beet cheeseburger" i thought "dude, you need some chips with this thing" so chips I ordered. To which the very normal response from the cook was "how much chips?"

A quick aside to those who have not grown up around fish and chip shops. The way this works when ordering chips isn't a simple small or large, you call out a dollar amount and they give you whatever they feel is worth that much. In some ways its a cool system in other ways I always feel that they are ripping me off.

How much chips?

Now in NZ and Australia I usually don't order chips someone else does, I'm aware of my accent and aware that the dollar amounts are arbitrary, in my paranoid mind if Kate orders in a semi-local accent we'll sound more local and therefore get more chips.

How much chips?

[voice in my head] Ok so usually for a grow of people we split a big pack of chips and thats usually like $5 or 6, I think…. So, ummm, for one person….

"two dollars" is what i end up telling the man. I'm fairly confident with, cause yeah, $5 or $6 is usually, to my recollection, a good amount for 3 or 4 people. 10 minutes later my food is up, i get handed an enormous burger (see above) and an EVEN BIGGER pack of chips. like TWICE the size. !?!?!?!? then I remember, I don't think we've got chips at a take away since being here, at least not when I was in earshot of the counter. NZ must be prime potato growing land if two dollars gets me a freaking pound+ of deep fried delights. I mean seriously it is insane, I took a photo AFTER I had as many as I could possibly fit into my body (maybe I ate half of them before the photo?)

going… into… food… coma……… now.