Robert Scribner is a senior majoring in marketing. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Hello, readership. In the wee hours of Monday morning, at about 7:30 a.m., I found myself skimming through some recent news headlines on the Internet. I was looking for something momentous to opine about in this article, not because I procrastinated until the last minute, but because I only like to report on the hottest new stories.
At first, they were all pretty boring and commonplace. Hillary Clinton this, Iraq that. I just kept skimming until I got to something worth typing or, in your case, reading about. And then I found it, a diamond golf ball in the rough. I spotted two words that I had never expected to see together in publication, at least not outside of the most imaginative science fiction novellas.
The words? Burger machine. Can you comprehend that? Go back and read it again. Read it over and over until you’re sure that you have a firm grasp on it. Now read it again, because you don’t, and you never will. Burger machine. Dang.
Apparently, there is something called the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. To win the contest, you have to create a contraption that performs a basic task in the most possible steps. It’s in honor of a fellow named Rube Goldberg, who drew a popular series of cartoons depicting these intentionally inefficient devices. And this year at his competition, they finally made burgers.
The rules dictated that the burgers had to be assembled with at least one meat patty, two vegetables and two condiments between bun halves, which is exactly the way I like them. A group of engineers from Purdue University reigned victorious, as its machine took exactly 156 delicious steps to compile its burger.
What I want to know is: Where can I purchase this device? I’ve already checked www.burgers.com, and that redirected me to a Carl’s Jr. site, which unfortunately was not a purveyor of the burger machine. I’m not necessarily interested in the complexity of the apparatus. All I’m concerned about is having a machine that creates burgers, and I’m not sure that a simpler one exists.
This machine should be big news. The public needs to know that there is a better, more convoluted way of making burgers. I feel like I’m stuck in the 20th century driving my 1998 Nissan Sentra to Burger King, ordering my different combinations of one-patty, two-vegetable, two-condiment burgers. Just yesterday, on my way back from my third trip to Wendy’s, I distinctly remember thinking that the drive-thru was so passé.
Everybody wants to talk technology these days. All I ever hear about are iPhones, iTunes and iPods, and I don’t even know what those mean. Finally, somebody has the brains to invent a burger machine. Here I am thinking Nobel Prize, and nobody else even cares.
The average American consumes somewhere less than, but likely near 1,000 burgers per year. The vast majority of these burgers are purchased at restaurants, and they’re crafted mainly by humans. There are two main problems with this.
One, we are wasting precious fossil fuels driving back and forth to these restaurants. Two, we are wasting precious manpower constructing these burgers. This is manpower that could be better utilized in finding and extracting more fossil fuels, because I’m told that we are running low.
Open your eyes, people. Get the word out about this. I am sick and tired of our archaic and rudimentary food preparation methods. I love to eat burgers, but I hate the hassle of not having a 156-step machine to make them for me. So, for the love of God and burgers, let’s get this machine out there on the market.