My friend Chris likes to point out that the best way to eat White Castle hamburgers is to buy a big sack of them, take them home, and throw them directly into the toilet.
This way, he says, "You'll cut out the middleman."
This potentially saves "the middleman" six to eight hours of painful indigestion. After all, those White Castle onions are the hurting kind.
Bear in mind, the same friend also says, "If you ever get the urge to go bet on the ponies, just pull up to the horse track and hand $20 to a random pedestrian."
"Save yourself three hours," he adds.
As you may note, he's not only wise -- he's thrifty.
Often, in times of dire need (moving day, computer crash, fighting orcs), I've called upon his infinite wisdom.
That wisdom has paid off many times, but only when I listen do I reap rewards such as a painless digestive tract.
Over the weekend, I did not listen.
Nay, for White Castle goes deeper than feeble warnings or grown-up advice. No hungry mortal can resist White Castle -- unless that hungry mortal is sober.
I cannot prove the existence of addictive substances in White Castle hamburgers, nor do I know of chemicals that remain dormant in the human body for months or even years, only to be triggered by adult beverages and transformed into cravings.
But at the mention of a White Castle run on Friday night, my eyes went wide and I slipped into a trance-like state akin to Homer Simpson's drooling doughnut daydreams.
(Incidentally, adult beverages make people believe they can digest anything. Mexican restaurants make a majority of their net profits solely from drunkards who think burritos are food.)
Indeed, getting my "eat" on sounded like a swell idea, and I didn't care about any digestive nonsense. That sounded like book learning, and there was no time for that flim-flam.
Oddly, I didn't recall White Castle hamburgers' dubious nickname -- "sliders."
"Sliders," so named for how they tend to "slide" through one's system, were of no consequence.
(Disgusting, sure, but sensory details such as these are blue-humored bastions of collegiate journalism.)
My friend Brian and I arrived at a White Castle in Brownsburg, Ind., where I suddenly felt sort of Victorian.
"Burger merchant!" I boomed into the drive-up speaker, "Produce for us your finest specialties in the amount of 20, and place them in a sack for optimum transportation efficiency! Prepare them quickly or I shall grow angry, at which time you shall not like me!"
Through the folding window, a hard-working, employed American soon brought forth three sacks of steaming, stinking "food."
Undaunted by the stench, I simply removed the plastic cover from my air freshener, rolled the windows down and drove, exuding determination.
We had our mission. You could tell by the way we used our walks. We were White Castle men, with no time to talk.
Upon our return to Brian's home, the eating began. After several, we determined the idea of eating 20 was far-fetched.
"Breakfast," Brian said.
But when morning came, our cravings were no more -- gone in the night, abandoning us to digestive mayhem.
We had become unfortunate middlemen overnight. Doubled over, I wished I'd heeded my friend's advice.
Fie on you, White Castle, and your evil sliding ways.
Write to John at kingseyeland@bsu.edu
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