I Want to Be a Hamburger

"There are only 40 people in the world and 5 of them are hamburgers."

How magnificent is that?! I stumbled across this quote from Captain Beefheart when I was in junior high. It really makes no sense at all, but leaves me with the impression that the hamburgers are something special.

Not this one. Definitely not this one.

Maybe I've misinterpreted. Maybe the hamburgers are the duds. Maybe they're the ones just masquerading as the precious few real people in the world, but underneath they are a ubiquitous fast food staple that invariably gives you heartburn. Maybe they're the people who make you hold your gut in the middle of the night and say "never again". Maybe they're the sort of people who seem like a good idea at the time, but then later leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and a mild case of diarrhea. On second thought, maybe I don't want to be a hamburger.

But what if he meant one of those luscious, right off the grill on a homemade bun hamburgers? A leave the back door open while you're cooking so you can listen to the children play in the yard and smell the raspberries by the steps kind of hamburgers? What if he meant the kind that you have on those summer days that last forever, suspended in a moment of the yawning sun stretching and easing its way back over the mountains? The kind of hamburger that you talk about long after it's been eaten? The kind of hamburger that you'd drive across state lines for? The kind of hamburger that you remembered that you tasted once and it makes you a little sad because now you know that moment has passed and you'll never be there in that moment with that hamburger again? What if that's what he meant? Maybe I do want to be a hamburger.

Or maybe he was just talking random nonsense and never realized that not only would it be recorded someplace, but that an unsuspecting 13-year-old girl would step in that and get it stuck on her shoe and carry it with her the rest of her life as something to ponder when she didn't feel like thinking of other things.

Still. I think I want to be a hamburger.