31 August 2009

Underground.

If you haven't ever ordered an Animal Style burger at In-N-Out, I won't just assume you live at the bottom of the Marianas trench. You could also be Amish or Martian, or maybe you're a caterpillar so you don't eat meat. These are all valid excuses. Maybe you suffer from a life-threatening allergy to grilled onions. Who am I to judge?

My point is this: underground menus are often not quite as subterranean as they sound. You expect an underground menu, with such exciting and mouthwatering items as the Animal Style burger, from the kind of companies that keep up a folksy mom-and-pop image like In-N-Out. Especially when you start hearing about them on NPR. But you don't expect an underground menu at huge, boring, faceless national chains like Taco Bell.

I'm here to tell you that what you expect is, as usual, totally wrong.

Latitutde +40° 14' 55.55", Longitude -111° 38' 49.73": birthplace of arguably the best thing ever to be born in a Taco Bell, including Lindsay Lohan. Near the beginning of 2009, an employee at the Cougareat decided she wanted to improve on an existing underground menu item called the Man Burrito. She added a few touches of her own, suggested it to a few indecisive customers, and soon realized she had created an underground phenomenon. Without the help of national marketing campaigns (or any kind of marketing campaigns besides word-of-very-pleased-mouths), her creation began flying off the big industrial griddles at at rate of more than 15 per week.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the Super Man Burrito. You, reader, go over to BYU's Taco Bell and order one. All the employees know how to make it by now. The receipt will tell you that you have ordered a cheesy double beef burrito with guacamole, sour cream, red chip strips, and potatoes. But by the first bite you'll know that you got so much more. (Especially if you tell them to grill it. Don't forget.) By the last bite you'll FEEL that you got so much more. By dinner time you will still feel like you got so much more. And the best part? It's also on the receipt: three little numbers called $2.62.

This could replace the memory of talking to Javier the midget every day at lunch during high school as your favorite all-time Taco Bell memory. I know it has for me. But you don't have to take my word for it . . .

4 comments:

birdie said...

eet's ooover

(word verification: "mantable.": the dining area needed to handle a superman burrito)

Drew said...

This sounds delicious. And, just FYI. Javy (as we used to call him) was THE MAN. He used to give us free drinks when we would go.

W. A. Sandholtz said...

yeah, drew, that was for you.

my ghostwriter said...

you, yourself, experienced a little bit of my own underground savvy at a certain little vegas strip club recently. and you loved it.