Not Quite Our Love Burger

No, please don’t eat my Sausage McMuffin when I’ve undressed your Sausage McMuffin with Egg. Between the two there’s an important difference which I wouldn’t want disregarded: the ten pesos that add up to a flat, round, and slippery Sunny Side Up. That’s ten pesos, with which I could have bought –well, I don’t know– a blank CD? An antibiotic? A jeepney ride to Chinatown ?

Not that I will make a fuss over such irritatingly happy sandwiches; their fibrous buns; their noisy paper wrap; the Styrofoam cups of stale coffee they come with. After all, we aren’t exactly notorious for breakfasting. It’s the concept of a greasy 8 a.m. meal at McDonald’s –had together– which we’ve come to appreciate, and which has motivated us to take the frightfully pleasant 7 a.m. walk from your house, then through a marshy row of mountainside shacks, then across the highway, and finally to the small commercial J.P. Rizal district where all the fast food restaurants and coffee shops are, and where, at 9 a.m., Uncle Ian is due to show up. (I don’t mean to imply that he’s always on time for meetings.)

As we wait for him you suddenly realise your mistake (“That was your McMuffin, wasn’t it?”), and I –in similar whoopsy-daisy fashion– realise mine: orange juice. I should have ordered orange juice. It’s a good source of vitamins, isn’t it, vitamins I need to boost my self-esteem or heal these face pimples away. Either would do, as they are very closely related; at the heart of the matter is my dermatological well-being, which has been adversely affected by this mild case of dehydration. Yes, I know. I should pay more attention to what I consume –as should you– and how much of it I do consume.

But let’s forgive ourselves today. Our half-troublesome, half-inconvenient symptoms aside, everything seems to be in order. The sky is blue and the sun is shining, and the clouds are of the cleanest cotton. It’s also kind and breezy outside. The pedestrians –including this rebellious boy by the glass window, him who’s wearing Ray-Bans and a brown “Don’t be Sofa King Stupid” t-shirt and who would otherwise look so absurd in a less temperate climate– all look like they’re filming a TV commercial for spring: splendid, warm, and hospitable. My penchant for romance dictates that I should write a description of the weather on this sheet of tissue, to be brought home and typed later, but I don’t have a pen. I don’t even have my orange juice.