The Summer of ’89 Makes me Want to Throw up a Little

     Sometimes I feel like I must repress some of my childhood memories and then they come flooding back to me at the mention of a subject like mushy lettuce.
    Oh yes, mushy, chewy slime-like lettuce brings back the memories of the Whoppers and the summer of eighty-nine.
   In the summer of 1989, I was nine and our family did not have a ton of money. This was before EBT cards and the government helping out the struggling middle class like they do today.
    Thank god Burger King ran a special one day in June of ’89 or I might not have the disdain for hamburgers I have today.
    My Dad loves to buy cheap things.
   Growing up dad would take us school shopping at the dollar t-shirt store. Oh yeah, I was a popular child in my dollar eighties t-shirts. Dad also took us to the Hostess outlet to buy carloads of stale pastries.
    His biggest score of all was the great Whopper Extravaganza of 1989. I don’t know how cheap those damn Whoppers were, I just know that my Dad brought home about one hundred Burger King Whoppers and then he stuck them all in the freezer and for one summer all we ate were defrosted Whoppers with spongy, slimy lettuce and way to much Ketchup.
   I’m pretty sure this was the summer my Dad was out of work, and my Mom was working all day and she left him in charge of the three kids, all under ten years old.
   I had to tell my Mom this whole story before she admitted that she remembered those Whoppers and we reminisced about their freezer burnt grossness.
   To this day, I’m not the biggest fan of red meat and I’m pretty sure this little episode is the reason.